


Engrave Our Names on Tomorrow

by Needled_Ink_1975



Category: Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Complete, F/F, French Resistance, Jewish Character(s), WWII AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 13:31:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 135,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7363228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needled_Ink_1975/pseuds/Needled_Ink_1975
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1943. Under the German Occupation Paris is a city blacked-out at night, and dark even on the sunniest days. The rest of France fares no better.</p><p>Andy Sachs and her friends came to Paris in 1938, during the last peaceful fall that the City of Light would know for five years. Several years on, their stay can no longer be termed a 'working vacation.' Andy's begun to see things as they are, instead of the way she'd like them to be, and she's realized that she should've become angry quite some time ago.</p><p>Miranda Priestly came to France in 1918, just after the previous war, and what she rebuilt from ruin is under threat of destruction yet again. She's been aware and angry for a long time, and all the while she's been putting that anger to use. Miranda is someone that the Nazis both hate and fear but whom they dare not attempt to harm, not overtly, anyway.</p><p>Andy's heard of Miranda, but just a mention, and she never guessed at the time what that mention would one day spur into existence.</p><p>Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; scorning two is a really bad idea.</p><p>
  <span class="small">I was told to say the following: this story is by turns exciting, funny, and it has a happy ending. There. Tis now said.</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [law_nerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/law_nerd/gifts), [mayIreadtoday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayIreadtoday/gifts), [chainofclovers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** All recognizable characters belong to Lauren Weisberger and Twentieth Century Fox. This is a work of fanfiction for the purposes of not-for-profit entertainment, and as such constitutes fair use.
> 
> **Acknowledgements:** Thanks go to my wonderful Editors Three: **law_nerd** , **mayIreadtoday** , and **chainofclovers**. These three ladies were undaunted in the face of the monstrous wordcount, and each of their contributions has been invaluable. Thank you so much, all three of you, for helping to make me a better writer. And to **styx63** , for corrections that have helped to make this story better: thank you so much.
> 
>  **Please note** : This story touches on several sticky topics. The short list is as follows–
> 
> ~ the fact that the active French Resistance was not a French universal during WWII  
> ~ the fact that Vichy collaboration in German Occupied France, 1940 to 1944, was directly responsible for deportations of French Jews and other "undesirables" to Nazi concentration camps  
> ~ the fact that the German and Austrian people were knowing and complicit in the Final Solution, the attempted Nazi annihilation of the Jewish race (when the death-by-hard-labor camp's about a mile from someone's house, they're knowing and complicit)  
> ~ the fact that the German and Austrian people put up very little resistance to Nazism and all that it stood for.
> 
> Readers should also take into account the fact that war is horrible. However, that's NOT to say that this story contains gore and graphic depictions of violence: there is violence, but I've never seen the point in waxing lyrical on the subject. That's the stuff of schlocky horror stories, and this piece is not one those.
> 
>  **Regarding Miranda's (other) canonical last name** : My jump to 'Priestly' makes a heap more sense than Ms. Weisberger's. The name she chose doesn't have any of the right ties (also doesn't exist, but never mind that).
> 
>  **Regarding language** :  
> ~ 1: Each French/German word or phrase is either translated in the text, translated in dialogue, or is easily inferred by context.  
> ~ 2: While I can read French and German, my spoken command of both languages is pitiful. If I've screwed up any French/German/both, **feel free to tell me so** and I'll fix it. Just bear in mind that I've deliberately avoided modern/contemporary phrasing, jargon, and slang.
> 
>  **Regarding The Facts™** : To the best of my knowledge, any historical incident related in this story is factually correct. Wherever there have been two (or more) sides to an incident, I've consulted sources presented by all sides. That means that I've sometimes crosschecked my facts in English, French, Russian, German, Italian, and Polish, and in one instance in Czech. My thanks to all individuals on the (oh gods so many) fora who generously helped with translations.
> 
>  **Regarding ethnic epithets** : It's impossible to write a story _accurately_ set during World War Two and be 'politically correct' at the same time. After all, there's nothing whatsoever 'politically correct' about WWII, or any war, is there? No. So Americans are Yanks, Brits are Limeys, French are Frogs (I *think*. Gimme a break, it's a big story), Russians are Ruskies, Germans are Gerry or Krauts or Fritz or _le Boche_ , and so on. It's equal opportunity epithets all round: no-one's left out. **Before you freak right out** , kindly take note of the fact that NONE of those words was considered a **slur** during the period 1939 to 1945. Google is your friend.
> 
>  **And to any Holocaust Deniers** : IT HAPPENED. Unlike you lot, who think the Holocaust was/still is Allied propaganda, I've looked into the eyes of Survivors and the eyes of some of the men who liberated those camps. Until you're prepared to do the same, and tell them to their faces that the Holocaust was a hoax, STFU and bugger right off, you misbegotten cowardly waste-of-oxygen anti-Semitic ass-wipes. If you ignore this directive, I'll have no qualms about doing to you what you seek to do to others: I'll gladly deprive you of your voice: your comments will be deleted.
> 
> **Comment moderation is on.**
> 
> ________________________________________________

**_ONE_ **

Prologue: June 1943

The power went out, and Andy wondered how often through the night it had flickered out and flickered back on again. She lit a pressure lamp and while she was pumping it to bring the light up from a glow to brightness, her friend Lily walked into their tiny kitchen.

"German practice," said Lily. " _Guten Morgen_."

" _Dir auch_ ," Andy said wryly: _and to you_.

"I wanna swear," Lily muttered.

"I will on your behalf: fuck," Andy chuckled.

"I gotta learn German _and_ swearing. Not fair," said Lily, whose idea of strong language was ' _Applesauce!_ ' Lily stretched and covered a yawn, and asked, "What are we doing for breakfast?"

"We've got bread and eggs. Fried egg on toast?"

"Yes, please... I wonder what the fellas are doing for breakfast," Lily said.

"I'm half-expecting Nate to change his mind," Andy said. "After all, I nearly always get things from the bistro."

"Talk about irony," Lily said.

That irony had to do with Nate being a chef at another restaurant, one that was formal and expensive, and where his salary was considered sufficient to purchase his own food. Part of Andy's salary was a share of any produce and baked goods left over at close of business, and things like bread and eggs were usually not in especially short supply in this little _pension_. Her boss was generous because he could afford to be, in two ways. Firstly, he had a staff of only eight, and secondly, he was well-connected with the shady people who ran the black market. Nate worked at a much bigger establishment; he was one of five chefs and the rest of the staff numbered upwards of thirty. That particular restaurant was popular with German officers, both those resident here in Paris and those visiting. Nate's boss was a firm Vichy supporter, and by extension a supporter of the occupying Germans. When he couldn't find an ingredient, he was known for sending a runner to find the nearest high-ranking SS officer, and within a day, that ingredient was part of a dish on the menu.

"Nate was talking yesterday about roast quail," Lily said.

"Wonder where the asshole Nazis stole those birds from," Andy muttered.

"They catch 'em in nets, don't they?"

"As far as I know, and what else I know is that it's not quail season, so those birds caught and killed were still raising their young."

"Fewer quails next year," Lily said.

She finished toasting the bread over a tiny fire on the hearth, and Andy was ready to put the eggs on the toast. As usual, they ate slowly, enjoying every morsel, and not a crumb was wasted. They wiped their plates with rough slices of the bread that hadn't been toasted. It was yesterday's bread and there was no point in saving any, and Andy took what was left of it and the remaining three eggs, and knocked on her neighbor's door. The food was gratefully accepted by a woman with a small child. As with many other men, her husband had been shipped off to Germany as part of a forced labor program.

"Have you had a letter from Louis?" Andy asked in French.

The woman's only answer was to shake her head, and Andy didn't say anything else. Her neighbor's door closed, and Andy was about to go back to her little apartment when she heard footsteps on the staircase. She looked towards the landing in time to see Nate crest the stairs. He gave her a half-smile that faded quickly.

"If you've come for breakfast, there's none," Andy said.

"I've had a little," Nate said. "Was hoping I could buy some milk. Heard of any available?"

"No," Andy said. She closed the door after Nate, and waited for him and Lily to swap greetings. Andy said, "If you hear about milk, let us know, okay?"

"You're always on the list," Nate said. He took a small paper-wrapped package from his pocket and dropped it on the table. "I got a bag of coffee beans. Ground some up for ya, cos you don't have a grinder."

"That's _real_ coffee?" Lily mumbled, pointing at the package.

"Nothing added," Nate said, nodding. "You got a pound there, or so. If you get some chicory..."

"I can get some," Andy said. "We'll make that pound stretch. Thanks, Nate."

"Yeah. Lemme go hunt the milk," he said, going to the door. "Got an idea I'm not gonna find any, though."

He left and Andy _had an idea_ that what Nate was really off to find was breakfast. She shook her head at the closed door, and looked at the package on the table. She and Lily decided that they could brew a little coffee, enough for just one cup each of the unadulterated real deal. They transferred the ground coffee to a clean jar and Andy carefully measured grounds into a small pot.

While the coffee brewed Andy stood at a window, looking down at the quiet street. The only passersby at the moment were a small group of Paris Police officers, and Andy wondered if Nate had been stopped and questioned by them. She shuddered at the thought. Nate had good French, but unlike Andy, Lily, and Doug (who went by the name of Alphonse these days), Nate's French was accented.

Their American passports had been hidden away and they all had fake papers and passports, saying they were Canadians, from Quebec. It was a thin ruse but so far it had worked, mostly because there was an ongoing political struggle against military conscription in Quebec, and the majority of Québécois supported the pro-German Vichy administration here in France. If not for that fact, Andy and her friends might've ended up in an Ilag, short for _Internierungslager_ , the civilian version of a POW camp. Their fake papers had been a last gift from a friend who'd boarded a ship that had been sunk as it crossed the English Channel. Andy had no idea if he'd survived, but she hoped so.

Nothing here was certain anymore. Andy and her friends were stuck, unless they could save enough to pay to be smuggled out through Spain, and that was unlikely. All they could do was keep their noses clean, Andy more so than the other three: she was Jewish, and if that fact was discovered she'd undoubtedly be deported to a concentration camp in Poland or perhaps Ukraine. It was firmly suspected that those who were deported ended up dead.

So much for what should've been a working vacation: after more than four years, they'd done more work here in Paris than vacationing, and that didn't look likely to end soon. Still, the phrases 'after the war' or 'when the war is over' were often mentioned among the four friends.

Lily had no intention of going back to the States, and she wanted to talk her parents into coming here. Not even the jackbooted German soldiers gave Lily any of the racist invective she'd been subject to almost every day back home. Here in Paris being fluent in French and knowledgeable of whichever subject was what mattered first, and the color of one's skin was often not even a secondary consideration; in most cases it wasn't a consideration at all.

Doug was undecided. He wanted to see how things turned out here, and he felt that if the Germans were pushed out, the French might need him to hold onto his job at a bank. He might even be able to get a better job in the finance sector beyond banking. But Doug was also honest about missing his family, and Andy was pretty sure that he'd jump straight on a ship, if he was offered a ticket home.

The tune that Nate sang most often was that he'd be going home as soon as he could, though lately he'd occasionally mentioned the possibility of signing up to fight. He'd say things like that after being hassled by the Vichy police or when a German patron had complained about a dish at the restaurant.

"I can't see him with a rifle," Lily said over her coffee cup.

"Me neither," Andy said. "He only says that stuff about enlisting when he's sore about something, so don't take it seriously."

"You ever gonna tell me why you two split?" Lily asked.

"He says I've changed," Andy said angrily. "Of course I've _changed_ : there's a fuckin' war on. People are dying, and other people are just... disappearing. They're rounding up Jews everywhere and deporting them, and there's things like what happened last week, when those innocent people in that village were shot... Of course I've changed. Of course I take life and living a lot more seriously. My blood is enough to get me killed, for Pete's sake."

"You're telling me he doesn't get that?" Lily said.

"Oh, he gets it, but he doesn't get why I'm getting angry about it, and he doesn't get why I feel guilty about not getting angry about it before now."

Lily nodded and slid a pack of cigarettes across the table, and Andy lit one. Puffing smoke was better than chugging that precious coffee. She had a small sip and, as she often did these days, she thought a small prayer of gratitude. Andy could only think her prayers. Saying them out loud, even in a whisper, was far too risky. She snorted smoke through her nostrils, angry at the very idea of how many times a day she usually had to tell herself, "Don't say that," or "Don't do this."

"At least in Egypt we got to pray; Pharaoh had nothing on Hitler, God _damn_ him."

" _Shhh!_ " Lily hissed, looking at the open window.

"Shit..." Andy muttered.

She got up and made sure to approach the window from one side, and she leaned just enough to look down at the street: no-one was running, a few citizens were talking, absorbed in their conversation, and none of the other people out there were looking at this window.

Later that day Andy and Lily attended a lecture in a cool classroom, out of the summer sun. A few other people in this regular group of 'students' were as Jewish as Andy was. They knew each other, knew about each other, sometimes warned each other of police or _milice_ roundups of Jews, but otherwise they hardly spoke. The only time they met was here, to listen to a lecture by a writer or philosopher. Three of the other students were Americans, three men in their thirties, clearly old friends, and Andy suspected that they were Jewish, too, though perhaps not practicing Jews. They were less cautious and Andy worried about that occasionally.

For a while she'd been a little suspicious of a newer student, but other people who attended these lectures were comfortable with that young man, who was always smiling and occasionally cracked clever jokes. Most men his age had been sent off as laborers, to Germany, but this fellow had lost an arm, somehow. The French were very correct about such things, and his pinned, empty sleeve was never mentioned, never looked at. He had little to say to the women in the group, and Andy supposed that he was one of those men who agreed with the Vichy principle that women were meant to be mothers, and that married women in particular should not hold jobs. Ordinarily that was enough to cause Andy to want to smack people, but in this young man's case she let it slide, mostly for the fact that when he contributed to discussions his views seemed a good deal more liberal than those of the average Vichy supporter.

Today he'd had interesting things to say after a lecture on existentialism, but Andy noticed that he kept checking the clock on the wall, and he left in some haste at around four p.m.

"Straight to work?" Lily asked.

"Yeah," Andy said. "May as well. François is always grateful for a little extra help before dinner time. Good luck with that exhibition opening this evening."

"At least it's contemporary art," Lily drawled. "It's not likely to vanish overnight."

"Unlike things in museums," Andy said under her breath, her eyes on a few SS officers. "See ya later. _Much_ later."

Lily kissed Andy's cheek and jogged away, and Andy likewise hurried off. When she got to work, François told her that she was wonderful and kissed both of her cheeks, and Andy didn't need to be told that someone had quit or sent word that they were ill. It wasn't often that she worked in the kitchen (her usual place was behind the bar), but tonight François trusted someone else to pour beer and wine and make up a few cocktails, and Andy ended up sweating over pots and pans at a range. She'd learned a lot from Nate and put much of it to use tonight.

When the bistro's last patron had left, François chased Andy out of the kitchen, and her colleagues there agreed that she'd earned a break. François poured her a glass of wine and pushed her gently into a seat at a table. He disappeared for a while and came back with a basket of things, mostly the usual: bread, eggs, but also some nearly-cold roast chicken. Everyone would have some chicken tonight.

"Where did you get them?" Andy asked in French.

"Her name is Miranda. Like you she came from across the sea," François said, deliberately a little cryptic. He knew that Andy wasn't a Canadian. "But she came here many years ago... Miranda Priestly. That's a name we should all remember. She's of much help."

"I've heard her last name before," Andy said. "They whisper it, sometimes."

"Better to whisper that name, than to shout it. The _Boche_ hate her, and those _Vichyste_ swines hate her even more than the _Boche_ do, but they are helpless against her, because so many would rise up if she were harmed, and if _they_ rebel, then others will also... All the eggs we serve here, all the eggs you eat, they come from her. She feeds many people. Sometimes she 'feeds' them things that they cannot eat, but which are still a help."

"The Krauts don't like those _things_ , huh?"

"No," François said with a smirk. "Drink. Good wine, yes? Also from her."

"It's really good wine," Andy agreed and had another little sip. "So she's out in the country somewhere?"

"Halfway between Paris and Orléans. I have been to her chateau and walked in her vineyards. But that was before this damnable war. _Sacré nom_... when will it be over?"

"All we can do is keep hoping it's soon," Andy said and had the last of her wine.

François, ever the gentleman, walked her to the door and waved her off on her way home.

It was late, something before midnight, and Andy walked quickly even though she was tired. She had a pass allowing her to be out after curfew and instead of trying to avoid a patrol of Wehrmacht soldiers, she walked right up to them, holding out the little card. They checked it and also checked her basket. One made a silly chicken-and-egg joke, and even Andy laughed. For the most part the Wehrmacht men were regular, ordinary soldiers, and many outright refused to get involved when the Paris police and/or the _milice_ —the Vichy militia tangled with citizens. Wehrmacht men were only guaranteed to harm a Parisian if those people used firearms. Andy bid the four men a good night and they complimented her German before wishing her the same.

As she neared her neighborhood, the power went out, leaving Andy in almost complete darkness. Light from a kind half-moon and from chinks in drapes and blackout paper helped her to find her way, albeit slowly. She took a shortcut through an alley dark as hell, but there was more light beyond it, and she kept her eyes focused on that grey patch ahead.

Hearing a rustle behind her, Andy paused, and as she was turning an arm was rapidly wrapped around her throat and tightened; another arm pinned her arms to her body. She tried to shout, but the arm around her throat squeezed and she started to feel faint. Someone else put a cloth bag over her head and in a harsh whisper she was told not to make a sound, or she wouldn't be the only one who died tonight.

"Nathan. Lily. _Douglas_ ," the whisper listed.

Andy ceased to struggle; she froze, her body literally locked up in fear for the lives of her friends.

She still had a hold of her basket, her brain still focused on not breaking the eggs. The basket was eventually wrenched from her grasp, and her hands were tied behind her back; a cord at the base of the bag was tightened around her neck. She was almost carried somewhere, perhaps back the way she had come, or forward from where she'd been grabbed: she couldn't tell.

She heard the sound of a motor and wheels rolling slowly over cobbles, and she was picked up and shoved into a vehicle, the back of a truck. Andy sat still, heart pounding, and all she could think of were her friends.

She'd only heard French spoken, but now someone whispered in German, asking where she had to be taken.

"Rue de Saussaies."

Andy's heart thumped so hard she thought it might kill her. Saussaies: she'd been grabbed by the Gestapo.

Someone climbed into the truck and slapped her, hard. Andy's head hit the floor of the truck bed, and she passed out.

____________________

_Ami, entends-tu_  
_Le vol noir des corbeaux_  
_Sur nos plaines?_  
_Ami, entends-tu_  
_Les cris sourds du pays_  
_Qu'on enchaîne?_

 _Friend, do you hear_  
_The black voice of crows_  
_Over our plains?_  
_Friend, do you hear_  
_The muted cries of our country_  
_In chains?_

—Maurice Druon, Joseph Kessel, Anna Marly: _Chant des Partisans_

____________________

September 1943

 _La Renarde d'Argent_ —the Silver Vixen sat at a table in the shade on this warm autumn day. Some distance away two red-haired girls, eleven years old, played marbles in a patch of sand. It wasn't an especially feminine game but their mother, like many others, wasn't at all inclined to limit them in any way. It just wasn't done to say, 'Don't play' when the next day might bring a bombardment, or soldiers might drop out of the sky and decide to use one's home as a headquarters or a hospital or as shelter from other soldiers.

In German Occupied France nothing was certain except the very present, and life lived hour-to-hour was a tense affair, to say the least.

And those two little girls didn't know it, but today was the last they'd be spending in France.

"Have you told them yet?"

"No."

The girls began arguing in French over a marble, whether it had only been tipped or had rolled, and their mother clapped her hands twice.

"English," she said just sharply enough.

"Yes, Mom," came a two-voiced chorus in a definite American accent.

That was imperative. If the girls were caught alone, if they spoke only English in American accents, it was unlikely that any German or Italian soldier would harm them. They would be turned over to an officer, who'd curry favor by in turn handing them on to a superior, and the girls would be ransomed. By now any American wealthy enough would lie through their teeth about distant relatives, and pay up. The girls would soon be safe with whomever whichever consulate sent to fetch them—the one in Madrid, most likely, though the consulate in Istanbul had been rather busy, sending out escorts and ransom-bearing emissaries.

But if all went well, the girls wouldn't have to go through such an ordeal. If all went well tonight, they'd board a vehicle and would arrive at a certain airstrip in Spain in just two days. From there they'd fly to Britain, and be kept safe by a friend in Scotland.

"Don't you think London would be safer?"

"Stephen, have you been drinking again?"

He flinched and wondered yet again (for the eighth time today, alone) why the hell he'd married her.

"You don't really believe those Rube Goldberg rockets are actually gonna reach England."

"They bombed the hell out of London, using planes by far inferior to our bombers. I don't put anything past them."

"And if Scotland will be safe, why don't we get on the truck, too?" he muttered.

"Go, by all means," she hissed, eyes burning.

"Y'know, maybe I will."

He got up in a hurry and her hand snapped out, catching his falling chair. That always shocked him. She didn't look like much, she never had, but she was so damn quick. And he knew she was glaring at him. He was about to walk away, but thought of something.

"If I leave tonight, Miranda, I'm not coming back, and the hell if I'll stay in fucking Scotland."

"By. All. Means," she repeated, her gaze steady, unflinching.

He'd never been able to stare her down, but if this was the last time, he felt he might as well give it a try.

And all she did, as she'd done so many times before, was raise her chin just a little. As had many other men, he turned away from her complete defiance and the absolute belief she had in her equality.

He walked away and she knew he'd go ahead to some little drink-swilling hovel near the rendezvous point. She wouldn't see him again, and that didn't hurt even a little. She'd reached her limit with Stephen some months ago, and from that point on she'd merely tolerated him.

" _Renarde_."

" _Oui?_ "

"The Englishwoman is back."

Henri, supposedly the farm foreman, jerked a thick thumb over his shoulder. Miranda looked that way and saw two people walking along at a good pace, still some way off.

"Who's that with her?"

"A man, American," Henri said, his voice coming from somewhere below his shoes. "I forget his name but when I was still a boy, before we moved to Lyon, I remember, he was here all the time."

"Nigel?" Miranda murmured.

" _Oui_ , him," Henri rumbled and lit a cigarette.

Miranda stood and stole the cigarette. Henri grumbled good-natured cusses and lit another.

"I last saw Nigel in Paris four years ago," Miranda said.

"The day you were married to _le salaud?_ " Henri rumbled: — _the bastard_.

"Mmm," Miranda said, nodding. She'd long since ceased to be offended by Henri's honesty. "And it seems that _le salaud_ will be leaving tonight."

"Good."

They smoked in silence, Miranda occasionally watching her girls at play, and within a few minutes Miranda was kissing Nigel on both cheeks. He looked thin, harried, and she'd noticed that he had a slight limp.

"The _milice_ nearly caught me," he blurted. "She got me out."

"How?" Miranda demanded of an older redhead.

"Good old punt-and-run. In this instance I punted a smoke-grenade and we managed to run away," she drawled.

"Emily's got a real good arm. She could pitch in the Majors," said Nigel.

"I'll stick to cricket, thank you."

"After the war, who knows?" Miranda said lightly, but she gave Emily a slight nod. "What news is there?"

"Believe it or not," Emily said. "The Italians surrendered, and that was probably a mistake on their part, because their Gerry friends aren't friends anymore. Word from Greece: as many as three-thousand Italian POWs slaughtered by the bloody Gerry bastards."

"Dear God," Miranda muttered. "What else?"

"That's about it. But James' group have another American for you. They've kept her a while because she sniffed them out."

"She wasn't sent?" Henri asked.

"Neither by our Baker Street chaps, nor by the Yanks. I dunno what the bloody hell she thinks she's playing at. That stunt could've gotten the dilly cow killed."

"We'll see," Miranda said. "All set for tonight?"

"Ready and waiting," Emily said, her eyes on the two little girls several yards away. "It really isn't safe here anymore."

"Where is it safe?" Henri rumbled around an unlit cigarette. He lit it and said, "But we give them a chance. I hear the _Boche_ are too scared of those horrible bagpipes to go anywhere close to Scotland."

"If you think the pipes are bad, old bean, you should experience a haggis," Emily drawled.

"A _what?_ " Henri said, frowning.

"You're better off not knowing," Nigel chuckled.

A lot of people were better off not knowing several things. Much later, after dark and almost midnight, Miranda bundled her two sleepy daughters into the bed of a truck. Stephen climbed in with them, and Miranda hadn't expected that. She certainly hadn't expected him to be sober.

"I'll get 'em there," he told her, and that was all.

It was enough, and she knew he meant it. Miranda kissed his cheek, and kissed her girls' foreheads, and by now they were asleep again. She looked sharply at an old doctor.

"Laudanum. Very safe, as I promised, _madame_ ," he said and took her hand. "By the time they wake... Well, they are not babies and they understand great distances. And they trust me, remember?"

Miranda nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. She looked at her daughters for a while, and jumped down from the bed of the truck.

"Go. _Aller, aller_ ," she said, just loudly enough.

The driver ground the gears a little, but he was good with the clutch, otherwise, and the chugging lorry rolled away smoothly. Miranda stood alone in the dark with only the cold stars for company, and she allowed rare tears to slip down her face. Nothing was certain, not even the usual way of things for youngsters who had American accents.

How many lies had she told herself, in the last few days? She couldn't remember, and to try to remember now was bound to do her nothing but harm. Sometimes lies were the best thing left, especially if they were the only thing worth hearing.

~ ~ ~

She was cold and hungry, but that was all right: she'd been a lot colder and hungrier than she was now, and a lot less safe, too. The scar around the left side of her neck itched but she left it alone; she had to do a lot more work, mentally, to keep from scratching at the itching scars at both wrists. She tried to focus on something good, and that also took some mental discipline. Eventually: _At least my hair's growing back_ , she thought. As always that particular thought was followed by another: _Kraut assholes_.

"You're angry _again_ , huh? Always mad as hell," said one James Holt. He smiled and nodded. "Good. Mad is very, very good."

"Uh-huh."

"You gonna tell me your name yet?"

"Uh-uh."

"Suit yourself: no breakfast."

"Listen Mac, starving me is not gonna get me to say anything more than what I've already told ya, and what I've told ya _should be_ enough."

"Really?" James said and sat on a hay bale that had seen less-moldy days. "This is Occupied France, doll. It's a nasty place. Lots of risks, and one of those risks is people ratting us out. That happens, all the time. I mean, kids and old people are literally starving, because the fuckin' Krauts are making 'em pay for their own occupation. Know what that means? Can you break it down, honey?"

"Oh sure. They say their Reichsmark is worth twenty times the French franc, and they say they're buying fair, but they're really fleecing everyone bare. How's that, _honey?_ "

"Huh," said James. "Y'know what? Miranda can have ya. I don't care how much my bosses in the US of A will wanna bust my chops for that."

"Who're your bosses?" she asked.

"Hush-hush bunch called the OSS—Office of Strategic Services. All you need to know is that we're spies."

"You were just making a big deal about getting ratted out, and now you flap your gums about being a spy? Huh. Some spy..."

James' face reddened a little and he rubbed the back of his neck.

"You're a real pistol," he said and sucked his teeth. "Anyhow, like I said, you can go be Miranda's problem... Unless she decides she doesn't want ya."

"What happens then?"

"Nothing terrible. We just get you papers and get you out." James stood and walked to the barn doors, rapped on one of them, and it opened. "You waiting on an invite, sweetheart? Shake a leg, c'mon."

She got up and brushed bits of hay and straw off her clothes and marched out of the barn.

"Psst!" someone said.

She turned and looked around, and a young man beckoned her closer. He had bright blue eyes and a face that was far too young to match the rifle slung from his shoulder.

"What?" she said.

"He thinks he's much; he's not so much. You see, soon. _She_ is much, _la Renarde d'Argente_."

"Silver Vixen?" she whispered.

" _Oui_ , his uhh... boss, yes? His boss. Go, go now."

"Sure. Thanks... I think," she said.

She trotted off in the direction of a farmhouse, trotting mostly for the warmth it provided: the sun was only just rising and it was a lot colder outside the barn. At the door to the house she made use of a bootscrape and pushed her way inside, and she had to give the door a slight shove to close it. Something smelled good, but for now warmth was more important than food and she stood still, rubbing her hands slowly. She became aware of eyes, aware of someone staring, and she looked up at someone with red hair and a critical expression.

"You're a green one, but also not."

"I said so."

"Sit down before you fall down. When last did you eat?"

"I dunno... You don't look much like a silver vixen," she blurted.

"Hmph. I'm Emily, not Miranda. I know you've kept mum, while in James'... custody, for want of better, but you need to start talking. And I said, _sit down_ , woman."

She sat at the table but made no move towards the bread, and certainly not towards the bacon.

"I'm glad there's bread. When there's nothing else, it's better to live, so I'll eat even pork."

"You're a Jew?" Emily asked.

"I am, but I'm not the kinda Jew those assholes are used to," she almost snarled.

"So you were caught. They shipped you off?"

"Uh-huh, to a camp up near the German border. East of here, in Alsace."

"How did you get out?" Emily asked.

"They were stupid," she said, and resisted scratching again. "They picked me out for some young Nazi buck, and they thought I wouldn't try anything, but I hit him over the head with the chamber pot. It only stunned him a little, but there was a knife on his belt—a dagger, I guess, something to do with his regiment... Anyhow, he's dead, and I managed to get out that house. I was outside the camp, so I ran. Took me a couple months to get back here. I mean, no hair, skinny as a rake– I look like an escaped prisoner, so I could only move at night. And I'm ashamed of it, but I had no choice: I stole all the clothes I'm wearing."

"If you hadn't you'd be dead by now. And you should've just told James about all of that," Emily said. "If you had, he'd not have dared to keep you locked in a ruddy barn. Come along. There's better food down the road a bit. And certainly no pork."

She followed Emily out of the house, and there was no-one else around now. She thought she might have to walk, and hoped she could keep up, but in a little copse that might've been an orchard once, a pony and trap stood waiting. She climbed up and sat next to Emily who gee'd up the pony like an old hand.

"How long have you been here?"

"A couple of years now," Emily said. "You're Jewish, yes, but you're an _American_ , so how in blazes did you end up in a concentration camp?"

"I was stuck here, so like a few other foreigners I ended up studying. It's sort of... It's a case of if-not-why-not, because the literary greats here all give open lectures in Paris, and except for our jobs we had nothing better to do. Anyhow, that went fine, but we noticed a new student at some of the lectures who seemed as French as almost everyone else, but he had to be a spy. Twenty-seven of us were transported in the same cattle car, five Americans, only eleven people that I knew from lectures, but all of us Jewish. There was no warning: I was walking home from work around eleven at night, and they grabbed me. They asked me a bunch of questions that made no sense, and I thought I was gonna end up dead– they kept dunking my head in a tub of water. Then some man in civvie clothes walked in and said for them to stop, because dead I couldn't work. After that I didn't get to talk to anyone for three, maybe four days. Hard to tell because I was kept in a dark room. When we talked in the cattle car, we all had similar stories to tell, but two of the eleven people from lectures were missing. Maybe they'd gotten killed, or maybe they were the ones who coulda answered those questions."

" _Nacht und Nebel_..." Emily said through her teeth.

" _Night and fog_... What?"

"It's what they call it, the Gestapo and others. After they've grabbed someone and made them disappear, those bastards say they've been _vernebelt_ —turned into so much fog. We've found out that much, but hardly anything else... And you don't know what's happened to your fellow prisoners?"

"I know about one. He put up a fight, first day at the camp; they shot him... But my other friends, the ones still in Paris, aren't Jewish. When I got back here I skirted the city; I didn't dare go anywhere near my friends."

"Wise. There are spies everywhere—I mean, you're talking to one," Emily said.

"That makes two of ya just spouting that to someone you don't know from Adam."

"Well, I could pretend to be a shop-girl from Stratford-upon-Avon," Emily said dryly. "But there's not much point."

"Right. I see that now... At least you're the right kinda spy."

"We can but hope," Emily drawled.

"And what about Miranda?"

"She's lived here for twenty-five years. She's an intellectual, a socialite, well-connected, well-monied—in other words, the perfect spy. She's also an incredibly angry woman, and that makes her a very effective spy... among other things."

"Something tells me she doesn't take orders real well."

"She doesn't take orders at all. She gives them, and those who are clever and wise and who like their hides in one piece, all obey, _fast_."

"So the local partisans like her?"

"No. They worship her," Emily stated.

The pony hauled the trap over a short rise and another low hill came into view, but this one was crowned with an old chateau, and the hillsides all around now bore neat, well-wired rows of vineyards. She stared at them, wondering when last she'd seen any kind of agricultural _anything_ looking as well-tended. The distant low of a cow was heard, but it was out of sight, as were the sheep that bleated occasionally.

"How much does she have to pay to keep this?"

"She used to pay half, but these days no-one's stupid enough to come and collect on that."

"But everyone who works here gets a share?"

"And even some who don't work here," Emily said, nodding.

Emily drove the trap between old gate posts and a man came up to take the pony's headstall. He gave Emily a nod in reply to her greeting, and said something in French about "last night's shipment." Emily's step hitched ever so slightly, and it was possible that the man didn't notice because he led the pony and trap away without saying anything further.

"Listen here," Emily said quietly. "She sent her children away last night. Don't mention them. Don't ask about them. I'm only telling you so that you don't put your foot in it. In general, Miranda's a very private person, more English than American, sometimes."

"Private like that. Okay."

"Good."

Emily led the way inside, and from the way she checked this room and that it seemed that she knew this old house well. They ended up in the kitchen where they found an older woman stirring something over the stove, and a thickset man reading a newspaper at a table. There was a sawed-off shotgun resting next to the paper, and a pack of cigarettes was casually balanced on the hardwood stock. Emily picked up the pack and offered it to—

"What _is_ your name?" Emily said.

"Andrea Sachs, but everyone calls me Andy."

"I'm not 'everyone.'"

Andy whirled around and here at last, judging by that short silver hair, was the Silver Vixen. She wasn't tall, but Andy had imagined that the Vixen would be tall, and even now, faced with the reality of five-foot-five or so, Andy couldn't call this woman short or even average. She had that in her bearing that immediately caused Andy to want to stand up straighter, like a soldier on parade. Andy supposed that this was what her father had always meant by 'command presence.'

"Miranda Priestly," she said quietly and sat at the table.

The man hastily removed both his shotgun and the paper to the floor, and the older woman brought over a platter covered with a clean tea-towel. Emily gestured with the pack again and Andy took a cigarette, supposing it would make her hack because she hadn't had one in months, but she wanted it anyway. The man struck and held a match for her, and she coughed only slightly. She thanked him in a mumble.

"So," Miranda said and took a croissant from beneath the tea-towel (Andy stared at the pastry). "James sent me a runner early today. You have no experience and yet you expected—nay, demanded to see me, and further, I'm led to believe that you have no real idea of who I am, of what I do, of what I represent."

"Ma'am, yours was the only name I could remember. I kept my nose clean, in Paris."

"She's Jewish," Emily supplied.

Miranda set down a piece of her croissant, wiped her fingers on a pristine linen napkin, and gave Andy a long measured look. She felt like a specimen in a jar, but she bore up. She felt she had to, that if she didn't she'd flunk right out of the strange exam she'd walked into.

"Sit down," Miranda said at length.

Andy took the only seat remaining at the table, the one directly opposite Miranda.

"This one hasn't eaten for a while," the man rumbled, looking carefully at Andy. "No croissant for you, _chérie_. Jeannette?"

"She must have an _omelette_ ," said Jeannette and began to bustle in a different way at the stove. "Emily? Your ugly oats."

"Ugly it may well be, but oats for breakfast is as good as a full tank of petrol," Emily said and got up. She soon sat down again with a bowl of rolled oats porridge. "If you manage that omelet, Andy, there's some of this left. For now have some milk."

"Do," Miranda said, glancing at Andy. "What happened to your neck?"

"I got caught by some _Maquisards_ east of Paris," Andy said and took a tiny sip of milk: _so_ good. She went on: "Because of my hair, they thought I was a collaborator that someone else had cut loose. I had to talk _them_ into cutting me loose, literally."

"They were going to hang you?" the man asked, and he extended a thick but strangely gentle hand. "Henri."

"Hi," Andy said and shook his hand. "And yeah, it's not like the men in hiding to do major harm to women, but those fellas were real mad about an attack, an ambush. They lost two of their pals. Anyhow, the rope got me a bit. Coulda been worse, but they listened. Well, one of 'em did. There's not too many collaborators who'd say the _Shema_ while getting strung up."

"I daresay," Miranda murmured.

"You know what the _Shema_ is?" Andy blurted.

"Priestly, hmm?" Miranda said.

Andy blinked as her brain made a connection, a translation, and complete sense of the whole situation, all at once.

"Cohen," she whispered.

"Mmm," said Miranda.

"Right," Andy mumbled. She drew a breath and said, "I don't have any experience, you're right, but I'll work hard."

"We'll see," Miranda said.

~ ~ ~

It was the late _vendange_ for the remaining fifth of Miranda's vines, and as was the common practice people came from all over to help with the picking. While Andy picked she noticed that those 'people from all over' all knew each other well. She recognized some men without the serious expressions that they usually wore when they occasionally dropped by here, and some youngsters had a look of their fathers or uncles or older brothers. The women were, most of them, less connected, and Andy also noted a distinct absence of men like Henri and several of the other partisans who were here regularly and who could call those women wives or family.

Grape-picking was nice work but tiring, and Andy did her best to push through her spells of weariness. That often required complete focus on whichever task, so that it almost seemed she was working in a box or a tunnel.

"Stop. If you don't have the strength to push the bunch stem against the hook with one hand, then you'll drop the bunch."

Andy had been trying to hold the stem with one hand while sawing through it with the other. Miranda produced a hook-knife of her own: bunch of grapes gripped in the left hand, and her right thumb pushed the stem past the hook: sheared clean in a second.

"Tired," Andy admitted.

"Look after yourself," Miranda said flatly. "Go and help with the weighing."

Andy nodded and jammed the little hook-knife into the sheath on her belt. She walked off to the place on the side of the road where several people were weighing baskets and loading them onto horse- or ox-drawn wagons. Here Miranda's _vigneron_ or vineyard foreman Alain gave Andy a grin, and asked if she knew how to handle the balance scale.

"Sure. What's the average basket's weight?"

"One-and-a-half kilos," Alain said.

Andy moved the forgotten counterweight on the balance bar, setting it to automatically reduce total weight by one-point-five kilograms, and Alain cussed up a storm.

"I know from scales," Andy chuckled.

And she was good with figures, and as a result the wagons were loaded faster, which in turn meant that the grapes spent less time in the sun. All of that was a good thing, and Andy's gut told her to stick with the scale, even when she felt up to picking again. Alain eventually went off to pick and left her in charge of the weighing, and Andy felt good about that. The end of the day came sooner than it might have and the wagoners in particular made sure to thank Andy for that.

There was more work at the chateau where the grapes were being pressed. Andy was told that the giant basket press would be loaded, pressured, and cleaned for long hours into the night. She wasn't tired and leant a hand, breaking only for dinner, and she went straight out again. When at last she had a wash before bed, she was exhausted.

Andy and Emily shared a room, and Andy noticed that Emily didn't look up from her book that night. She might even have slowly and almost imperceptibly shaken her head. Andy was too tired to ask about that.

In the morning she felt like hell. She was so stiff that she could barely move, and that was noticed at breakfast, which was an oddly silent affair. Miranda was never exactly chatty but she tended to drop a quip here and there. When Henri, Emily, and Nigel were finished with their meal, they left the table promptly, and Jeannette also vanished. That left Andy perched somewhat foolishly at a corner of a mostly empty table, with Miranda, who was taking her time with the remainder of her coffee. Andy was about to go and find something to do when Miranda pinned her with a glare.

"I told you yesterday to look after yourself. You've been getting regular meals for only six days. Are you intent on suicide?"

"I—No," Andy mumbled.

Miranda stood and glared at Andy a moment. Andy gulped despite herself, and Miranda gave a quiet snort, turned on her heel, and stalked out of the kitchen.

It really wasn't pleasant to know that Miranda regarded her as a young fool. Andy stood with a wince and rubbed at her lower back.

"Dear God, gimme strength," Andy muttered.

"What?"

"Hi, Nigel. Nothing... Just—"

"Miranda?" Nigel guessed. He approached the table where he picked up his pocket-watch. "Andy, if you thought she'd be soft on you, then you deserve whatever rap she just gave you."

"I didn't expect—" Andy broke off and ran her fingers through her hair, still no more than an inch long. She measured her words and said, "I really dunno what she wants from me."

"She wants you to do your job without being stupid in a way that might get you killed, or that makes you so ill that you're of no use to anyone," Nigel said while wiping his glasses with a handkerchief. He settled them on his nose and looked her up and down. "You need better clothes."

"Maybe if we ask 'em nicely, all the fashion houses will open up again," Andy snarked.

"Oh darling, I wish," Nigel chuckled. "Come along with Uncle Nigel."

"Where to?"

"We're going shopping."

"There's a clothing store out here in the sticks?"

"Kind of," Nigel said noncommittally.

Over the course of that morning, for a few francs or promised barter of wine or milk or eggs or in one instance raw wool, Nigel found Andy shirts and trousers and even a couple of sweaters that were all only a little too big (she was still really skinny). The clothes she'd been tramping around in for the last week had all been far too big.

During the following week she found that her 'new' duds actually made a difference. She was better able to move and her chores seemed to get done faster. Better able to move also meant that her evening training sessions with the partisans went a lot more smoothly. She wasn't yet as fit as she could be, but good food and proper rest over the last two weeks had made her feel strong, and the constant simmering anger she bore gave even more of a lift to her strength.

It seemed to the partisans that she was trying harder and they gave her a little more of their grudging respect. Most of them really didn't want women involved in any of the business of resistance. The only woman to whom they gave complete respect was Miranda, and Andy had come to realize that that had a lot to do with the fact that Miranda _demanded_ that respect, but all without saying a word. She simply had that air about her: command presence, by the boatload.

It was rare that Miranda joined them in the evenings in one of the big old barns. Whenever she did, Andy made sure to watch her, and she noticed that everyone else did as well. When Miranda entered that barn, she'd often take over as instructor: firearms, blades, open-handed combat, explosives, general methods of sabotage, tactical planning and coordination—it seemed that she was well-versed in all of it.

"Where did she learn all of that stuff?" Andy asked Emily.

"I don't know, and Nigel doesn't know much either. If he doesn't know..."

"Yeah." Andy stole a puff of Emily's cigarette and handed it back. "Guess it wouldn't do to ask her."

"I learn from the mistakes of others, whenever I can," Emily said. "Several people have told me, never ask Miranda anything personal. I'm quite happy not to find out what sort bollocking they got for stepping on her toes."

Andy agreed, but she remembered that quiet little revelation in the kitchen on her first morning here.

Miranda had said nothing further about being Jewish. While she made no objection to Andy's observation of Sabbath rituals on Friday evenings, and she'd even helped to prepare and bake challah bread, Miranda didn't join in Andy's quiet prayer over the lighting of candles, another over the Sabbath wine, nor did Miranda engage in ritual hand-washing or in the prayer said before drying one's hands. But last Friday, after Andy had finished saying the blessing over the challah bread, Miranda had murmured "Amen." She'd also frowned and had looked annoyed with herself, and Andy had been hard-pressed not to laugh.

That little 'Amen' and the fact that Miranda had changed her name to 'Priestly' spoke in whispers of another life, one that Miranda had put behind her. That didn't sit well with Andy, but given that the Nazis were trucking Jews away in their thousands and tens of thousands, and locally the Vichy _milice_ were always keen to round up all Jews for pay, Andy would never berate any Jew for making an effort to avoid that.

Recently one of the partisans, a Jew himself, had said to Andy that being Jewish was important only so long as there were Jews left to feel that way. These days truer words were seldom spoken.

Over the following fortnight, Andy continued to work and learn. Some of what she learned had to do with Miranda.

Andy had taken Emily's instructions to heart, which left asking the right sort of people the right sort of questions about Miranda. Andy figured that if the Silver Vixen was as private as Emily had let on, then personal questions were likely to get the same reaction from Miranda's friends as they would from the woman herself.

All Andy wanted to know was the background, and she asked the kind of questions that sometimes needed only five- or ten-word answers. When those short answers were added into a long collection of answers, they painted a picture of someone who was probably considered a major hassle by both the Nazis and their Vichy dogs.

Twenty-five years ago, directly after the Great War had ended, Miranda had arrived here to find her inheritance little more than a ruin. The house stood, for the most part, but it lacked a roof and the east wing needed heavy repairs, and most of the farm buildings needed either to be re-roofed, or they had to be torn right down and rebuilt. Only the cellars had escaped damage, which was just as well because there were twenty reasonably well-tended acres under grapes, and Miranda arrived just a month before the _vendange_.

"I was still a boy then," Henri said. "And that first harvest she pledged to us, to the people who came to pick."

"And you coulda knocked 'em all down with a feather," Nigel tacked on.

"So much the surprise," said Alain and he topped Andy's wineglass. "My father was still with us then, and even before the surprise was softer, was less, Papa said, 'How many acres of three-hundred-and-sixty shall we put under grapes?' And Miranda said, 'Half.'"

"If she'd said that she didn't know," Nigel said. "If she'd hesitated or asked for advice, she would've lost Jean-Pierre's respect."

"But _instead_ ," Henri said, wagging his cigarette. "Alain's papa asked her what she wanted to learn about vines. So Miranda said, 'Only what will grow here.'"

"And Jean-Pierre promptly claimed her as his new best friend," Nigel drawled.

Whom Alain's father trusted, everyone else trusted, too, and that was the beginning of Miranda's closely cooperative relationship with almost everyone who lived within a ten-mile radius of her home.

Over the years the vineyards spread into those one-hundred-and-eighty acres, and the rest of Miranda's land, including an additional hundred acres purchased fifteen years ago, had been properly ordered for mixed agriculture. There was a large kitchen garden, potatoes, and several feed crops. The livestock numbered a beef herd, an eighteen-cow dairy herd, and a small flock of dual-purpose—meat and wool—sheep. The latest livestock addition had been chickens for eggs and meat.

"Two years before it kicked off, she sniffed out this goddamn war," Nigel said during another evening. "She converted the old hay barns into layer and brooder barns—in the States they're called broiler houses. These days those barns are sometimes the only source of food for upwards of three-hundred people."

And these days, food bought loyalty. Or it would have, if Miranda hadn't already had the loyalty of most of the locals, their extended families and friends, and anyone who thought she was 'a good egg,' as Emily called her. That amounted to an awfully long list of people, and many of them had never met Miranda; many lived as far as four-hundred kilometers away.

Closer to this chateau, Andy found out mostly by listening, that eggs and the occasional slaughtered bird had served to bring around even those people who hadn't liked Miranda, for whatever reason, before the war.

"As they say, Death is the great leveler," Emily said on a night when rain and sleet were competing with each other. "And those people put aside their stupid bloody reservations because Miranda is literally keeping people from Death's door... Wouldn't work, though, if this place was any closer to Paris or Lyon or Orléans. The farms closer to the cities have all been stripped, and most are abandoned."

"I saw a lot of that, while I was walking," Andy said. "I'd walk at night and almost every morning at dawn I'd see these... dead farms. They made for good places to sleep, though. Y'know, somewhere outa sight and outa the rain... I think we'll have to bunk with the cows, because this wet stuff is not gonna let up."

"I've kipped in worse places," Emily said, looking quite comfortable on a pile of straw.

"Yeah. Me, too," Andy said.

Learning about Miranda and the farm was one of Andy's small escapes from bad memories. Work was the big escape, and training was a lesser one, time-wise, but it was more potent: she was being trained to do considerable damage to the war-machine that had sought to kill her. That idea gave her some measure of comfort, but sometimes it wasn't enough, in light of the fact that it would never be enough for those who'd already been trucked away like cattle and slaughtered like helpless lambs.

"I'll be really honest with you," Emily said, her eyes on the guttering rain lit to streams of dull fire by their single storm lantern. "What you know as fact is still only a rumor, and one that isn't believed by many. Even after that United Nations declaration was published in several newspapers including the _New York Times_ , there are people who doubt mass executions of Jews and Poles for no other reason than their being Jews and Poles. It's just so hard to grasp when one's at a distance. It's not malicious doubt, Andy; it's the same kind of doubt expressed, during the Great War, when Germany gassed thousands of soldiers with chlorine mortars: how _can_ it be true... But it is, and those people will only believe it when they see it."

"If there's anything left to see," Andy said. "At that camp... They've got a fuckin' crematorium, Em. And I have fluent German: those SS assholes talk about other places—Birkenau is one, in Poland."

"Birkenau..." Emily muttered. "Did you ever hear it called Brzezinka?"

"Once– one of the guards asked what it's called in Polish. You know about it?"

"The SOE provides training to Polish resistance members. They know about the place. It's not just one camp, and they're better known as Auschwitz One and Two... The Polish blokes had an idea to liberate those camps, but there's no way we could do it that would involve protecting the prisoners—we can't just turn them loose. They'll all be captured again and likely have it worse than before."

"I see that point," Andy said quietly. "They push thousands of us through those camps. Thousands in, no-one gets out. Those camps can't be big enough to hold 'em all, which means they're death-camps."

Emily nodded and Andy knew by her expression that she was nodding because she _knew_ , and not because it would shut Andy up.

"Both Gerry and the Vichy swines have been sending Jews out of this country since Forty-one," Emily said. She looked at Andy sharply, and said, "Why did you stay? You could've gotten out in Forty and even in Forty-one. Why?"

"My friends and I came here to work and travel," Andy said and flopped in the straw next to Emily. "A working vacation, and then the shooting started... Two of our friends were on a little ship going across the Channel, and it got sunk; the day before we were due to leave, the boat that was crossing back, the boat we had tickets for, also got sunk. Rest of us looked at that and we decided to stay; when we wrote home, our families agreed: stay here. We all had good jobs by then, so... Stupid, I know, but—"

"Not really," Emily drawled and shuddered. "Me, take _ship?_ With all those ruddy U-boats lurking about? Not bloody likely."

"So how did you get here?"

"Oh, I dropped in."

"By parachute?" Andy mumbled. 

"Marvelous invention, the parachute," Emily said, nodding. "It's a lot like flying... Well, flying _down_ , and the ride never lasts long enough."

"You're screwy," Andy stated emphatically. "I'd rather take my chances with the U-boats, which is saying something, seeing as I can't swim."

"Now _you're_ the one who sounds bleedin' daft," Emily chortled.

"Hey!" Nigel hollered. "Where are you two girls?"

"Communing with the cows!" Andy yelled.

There was a pause during which a door was closed and opened again.

"Miranda says it's just drizzling, get your heinies in here!" Nigel yelled.

" _Drizzling?_ And I really doubt she said 'heinies,'" Andy said, and glared out the doorway at the rain– still bucketing down. She let Emily haul her out of the straw. "Looks like I'm gonna have to learn to swim fast."

"Ugh," Emily grumbled. She picked up the storm lantern, and said, "Right ninnies, we are... Race you!"

The race lasted less than thirty seconds, but they still ended up drenched to the skin, and freezing with it. In the kitchen even Miranda winced at their chattering teeth and nodded along with Nigel's orders regarding an immediate change of clothes. Once they'd obeyed those orders, Andy wrapped a towel around Emily's long wet hair, and she didn't say as much, but Andy finally made a little peace with her short locks.

~ ~ ~

A month without her children, and it had taken that long month for word to reach her that her girls were now safe in Scotland. It helped to have connections and to be owed favors: the British Special Operations Executive, also called the Baker Street Irregulars, had sent the plane and had seen to it that her girls had reached their destination.

Miranda fingered the letter smuggled to her and tucked it away in a hidey-hole beneath a floorboard. Very few documents were kept in this house, beyond bills of sale and the farm record books. She replaced the rug and straightened up, and felt a little lighter, a little happier, a little more certain that tomorrow might be a good day. She took a stroll through the house, intending to go out onto the wide back porch. In the kitchen she paused and collected a snifter of brandy, and she stepped through the backdoor.

It was dry out and cold but not uncomfortably so. That would come later, when the night forgot that it had been preceded by an almost warm day. Miranda lit a cigarette and blew smoke up at the cloud-patched stars.

"Nice night for it."

Miranda turned in the direction of those softly-spoken words: Andy was sitting on a bench right at the end of the porch where two walls made the sort of corner almost meant for one's back. Miranda strolled over, noticing on the way that there was a pistol on the bench near an ancient brass ashtray.

"You're in my seat," she said, teasing.

"Too bad," Andy chuckled.

"Perfect response," Miranda said and sat down.

She removed the Sauer 38H pistol from the waistband of her trousers and set it next to Andy's weapon, a Walther P38. Andy picked up Miranda's pistol and squinted at it in the dark.

"Where did you get this?"

"Off a very dead _Fallschirmjäger_. It's small, easy to hide."

"Yeah," Andy said and put the gun down. "I take it you're the one who made the Kraut paratrooper dead?"

"I don't like it when people point guns at me," Miranda said dryly.

"Me neither," Andy said. "But these days I got no problem pointing guns at other people... Henri said they caught some _milice_ snooping around in the woods near Oison."

"And you wish that you'd been there?" Miranda said, her tone even.

"No, I don't," Andy said, shaking her head. "I just wish those bastards would have more pride."

"Pride has nothing to do with it," Miranda said and blew a smoke ring. "They were all borderline-criminals before the Nazis arrived and gave them opportunity to become proper criminals. The active, armed _milice_ are all volunteers, and many of them are solid members of the _Croix-de-feu_ , a faction not dissimilar to the Ku Klux Klan in the States."

"Oh, lovely," Andy drawled.

"And that's why my standing order is to shoot any of them out-of-hand."

"You... You talk like that, and it doesn't fit," Andy said.

"Doesn't it?" Miranda said quietly. "And isn't that a fine disguise, hmm?"

"I see," Andy murmured. She cleared her throat, and said, "But people know who you are. I remembered your name, remembered that someone I know hinted that you had _Résistance_ links."

"Mmm, it's no secret, and yet..." Miranda stubbed out her cigarette and folded her hands in her lap. "Understand that by attacking me the Germans have much to lose: it would provoke the sort of uprising that they cannot, at this stage of the war, afford to put down. Moreover, by acknowledging that I'm a problem, the _Vichyste_ and their _milice_ dogs would lose face with the Germans. That, all of it, leaves me free to operate... though not without risk. I was shot last year, an assassination attempt. Even at near-point-blank range, the idiot didn't have very good aim, and he was rather surprised, next moment, to find a blade between his ribs."

"So it wasn't a bad hit."

"Small caliber, in and out and relatively clean. Not the first time I'd been shot, and the first was by far worse– the bullet glanced off the bone in my upper arm and broke it. I was a constantly angry woman for about eight weeks."

"I think of you as constantly angry," Andy said. "But it's like all the anger I've got in me: just simmering, waiting."

Miranda nodded and stretched her legs, crossing them at the ankle, thinking that anger like Andy's was a useful thing, if it could be controlled and channeled. But Miranda also had to be fair:

"At present you walk a wide road with room to turn, but the further you travel that road, the narrower it becomes. You must think carefully about what that might mean." Miranda got to her feet and finished off the last of her brandy. "Goodnight."

Andy mumbled a response. Miranda replaced her pistol behind the waistband of her trousers, and gave Andy a last look before carrying her empty snifter inside. She paused when she heard footfalls behind her; she'd half-expected them. Miranda paused, but didn't turn.

"Miranda," Andy said quietly. "Yael wouldn't have failed to drive the tent-peg through Sisera's temple. If I don't keep walking that road, I'll fail, and I refuse to fail."

Miranda turned and regarded Andy thoughtfully. The light of a single Tilley pressure lamp showed the truth of only a month's good food with the addition of physical effort– Andy was still a little gaunt. The shadows played about her face in a way that reminded Miranda of Andy's first morning in this kitchen.

"You delivered yourself out of Egypt," Miranda almost whispered.

"But others—so many others won't get that chance," Andy said. "I can't turn my back on that fact."

Miranda nodded. There was nothing to say beyond that acknowledgment, and Andy eventually returned to the porch.

Alone in her room Miranda readied for bed and sat a while looking at a photo of her girls. She hoped that by now they weren't missing her too badly, and that they'd made new friends, and that they were enjoying school. Her heart ached but before that got too bad, Miranda deliberately thought about the fact that her girls were safe.

"... _so many others won't get that chance_ ," Andy had said.

Miranda set the framed photograph next to the bed and checked the magazine in her pistol before turning out the lamp. The dark settled in around her as she settled into bed, but she didn't fall asleep at once. Miranda didn't know how long she lay awake, waiting, until Andy's quiet steps passed by the door. Until she heard those footfalls, Miranda hadn't known what she was waiting for. She fell asleep wearing a slight frown.

~ ~ ~

Over the next few weeks Andy felt that she learned more than she had during twelve years of school, four years of college, and several months' worth of attending lectures by various French writers and philosophers. Whatever she'd learned at school and more recently began to seem trivial and unimportant, in light of the fact that all the new things she was learning had to do with survival and defense, and ultimately a certain hoped-for success.

The British Special Operations Executive had people all over France by now, even right under the noses of the Nazis in Paris. Any new people assigned to the Paris-Orléans-Lyon triangle soon found themselves meeting Miranda, and since Andy had arrived those new people had reached and passed the count of twenty. Andy was often present at those meetings, and she listened and learned about major smuggling lines mostly from Spain, where the SOE made regular supply-drops.

Nearly every weapon currently in _Maquis_ and partisan hands had literally fallen out of the sky, 'donated' by the SOE. The current favorite was the Sten Mk II, which the Americans had ended end up copying—they called their M3 the Grease-gun, because it looked very much like one. The Sten submachine-gun was ridiculously cheap and therefore easy to replace if something went wrong with it (and Andy soon found that things frequently went wrong with them). The best characteristic of the Sten was its ammunition: 9x19mm, readily available either through supply drops or, as Henri once put it, by killing a few Germans. More often, instead of killing anyone, Miranda's people blew up a section of railway track directly under a passing train, and that usually resulted in the locomotive and whichever trucks still attached steaming away rather than attempting a fight. The partisans then salvaged whatever materiel from the remaining derailed or stopped trucks. Since Andy's arrival, and in several parts of France, various partisan groups and the SOE had captured several tons of materiel this way.

"Much of what is captured must be destroyed, such as Eighty-eight millimeter shells," Miranda told a new SOE agent. "We'd really like to take them apart and make use of the high-explosive housed in the projectiles, but that's a risky operation, and besides the fact that people get killed, big bangs attract attention. So we blow up stockpiled Eighty-eight shells, for an almighty bang, and by the time the Wehrmacht arrives to investigate, our people are long gone."

"A smaller bang might be used to attract attention," the SOE agent said. "And when the Wehrmacht arrives, you could blow _them_ up with the remainder of the shells."

"Hmph," said Andy. "You're a real green one, all right."

The SOE agent blinked at her and shook his head, confused.

"What Miz Sachs means," Miranda said. "Is that we don't poke tigers with toothpicks. For every German soldier killed through any sort of resistance action, the Germans usually execute three or more innocent civilians. We capture and sometimes destroy materiel, Mister Foster, but we try to avoid killing Germans, if at all possible."

"Right," said Foster. And: "Yes, I'm rather green, aren't I? But my specialty is communications and I hope to be of some use."

"If you stick to building radios, Sparky," Emily said. "And if you let other people make the big plans, you'll be of damned good use. But getting people killed is a right quick way to get yourself sent back home. If you're lucky. The last SOE agent who buggered it all up got buried, and no-one seems to know how he died. But we can guess, can't we?"

"Roger," Foster mumbled.

Like Foster, Andy learned a lot, fast, but she never thought that the roles would be switched and that she'd become the teacher, however briefly.

Three SOE agents came one night specifically to talk to Andy, and they'd come all the way from England. Andy and Henri had driven out to a vast empty field and had just glimpsed the three men making a rare accurate parachute landing. That night had been windless and that had been a help. Ordinarily parachuting into any place was a crap-shoot. When Emily had 'dropped in' she'd landed completely alone, forty-odd kilometers northeast of the chateau. As had Andy, Emily had had to hike only at night, without a map. She'd found a signpost at a crossroads that had helped her to work out where she was, and with the aid of a compass and a few more handy signposts, she'd managed to reach Miranda's home within three nights. By then Henri, Miranda, and others had looked at Emily as if she was a ghost: they'd thought her dead.

Tonight the three SOE visitors gave Emily respectful nods, and Andy had to wonder if they'd keep up that sort of respect, after the war. _Probably not_ , Andy thought. That thought was akin to something hot and sharp poking at her, making her bristle with annoyance, but she hid that before anyone else could pick up on it.

The visitors were shown down into the brandy cellar, where most meetings took place. It was almost as good as a bomb shelter and the heavy steel doors had once been armored hull plates off an old battleship run aground during a gale.

"Who made those doors?" one of the men asked.

"I've no idea," Miranda said. "They were here when I arrived. I presume my great-uncle commissioned them."

She poured generous splashes of brandy into several snifters and everyone helped themselves. Miranda cut the paper seal on a box of captured Tuscan cigarillos, and slid off the lid, and no-one said No to one of those. Andy chased the sweet rich smoke with a small sip of brandy, and felt close to that place where it was possible to forget that most of the world was at war. She didn't like that place and snapped herself out of it by asking the men their names.

"Peter," a man said, tapping his chest. He pointed out the other two men, and said, "That's Barry and this fellow is Captain MacIlvray. He's SAS, not SOE."

"And he's better known as Cap'n MacEvil," Barry chuckled.

"I don't stand for nonsense," said MacIlvray, with a shrug.

"Good. Nonsense, when there's a war on, usually gets people killed," Andy said. "What's SAS?"

"Special Air Service," MacIlvray said. "It's rather a new stunt, and the name's a bit... misleading. We don't spend much time in the air."

"If people don't really know what you do, that's a good thing," Miranda said.

"We all think so, yes," Barry said. He cleared his throat and said to Andy, "We know that you escaped from a labor or concentration camp—"

"I was outside the camp when I escaped," Andy corrected.

"Never reveal that detail to just anyone," MacIlvray said.

"If you must mention your escape, it was directly from the camp," Peter said. "You killed a man during your escape, yes?"

"I did. He was someone important?" Andy said.

"The nephew of Hitler's Chief of Staff _Generaloberst_ Jodl," MacIlvray said.

Andy was standing and decided that sitting down on a bench next to Miranda was better than falling down. She didn't expect Miranda's hand to arrive on her back, but Andy was grateful for that light pressure and slight warmth.

"How many people did I get killed in reprisal?" Andy asked quietly.

"We don't know, but it's possible that none were killed," Peter said.

"We have an agent in the area of that camp, who heard a story," Barry said. "A rather far-fetched tale of a duel. You see, duels these days are strictly _verboten_ in all branches of the German forces and in Germany as a whole. That duel was supposedly witnessed, but the 'man' with whom _Leutnant_ Jodl fought has not been named, while all of the 'witnesses' have been demoted and some relieved of command."

"Some of them were rather conveniently sent back to Germany," Peter said. "Too conveniently, and that's why our agent did a little more digging and listening."

"And she sent us word," Barry said. "And we already knew that you'd escaped and you'd killed someone in the process, with a nice sharp dagger. But there was no word on that. Too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise: we put the pieces together and that chap dead as the result of a supposed duel, was the one you killed."

"Makes sense, actually," MacIlvray said. "They've covered it up that their manly young _Leutnant_ was killed by a woman. A Jewish prisoner, no less."

Andy felt the muscles of her jaw tighten; her pulse began to race and her temperature rose to a full sweat, like she had a fever.

"You're so angry that you don't quite know what you're feeling," Barry noted. "But I know: you feel cheated, don't you?"

Andy did no more than nod in response. She knew that if she opened her mouth the first sound out of it would be something like a howl, a roar of righteous but impotent indignation. It was all made worse for the fact that she knew that these men were right, that she dared not mention the truth of her escape, because if word got out about it, those who'd effected the cover-up would likely have her hunted by the Gestapo. That hunt would lead not only to Andy, but also to Miranda and Henri and Emily and Nigel, and many others connected with them.

Andy had a sip of brandy and faced the music:

"So you're here to tell me it'd be a good idea if I left this country."

"Our immediate superiors felt that way," Barry said. "But they're mostly rather old men who fight wars from behind their desks."

"These two made them see sense," MacIlvray said, gesturing at his SOE companions. "Those old coffin-dodgers wisely decided to defer to the expert opinion that you'll be bloody useful here, and very unhappy elsewhere."

"The only thing you've got to worry about, in that regard," Barry said. "Is the OSS deciding they should ship you home."

"In their fuckin' dreams," Andy muttered and got up. Her cigarillo had been angrily puffed to nothing, and she snatched another from the box. She lit it, and while shaking out the match she said, "I'm not a soldier, I'm not signed up with anyone—not even you fellas. I aim to keep it that way."

"That's capital," Peter chuckled. "Exactly what we hoped to hear."

"What else we'd like to hear is any detail you might remember of that camp," MacIlvray said.

"You got all night? Cos I got a real good memory," Andy said.

"There's enough brandy here to keep us going all night..." Barry quipped.

Andy had expected Miranda to bridle at that comment, but she only laughed, and asked if their guests would like anything to eat. She mentioned bread and cold roast beef, cheese and pickles, in combination almost a plowman's lunch, served well-after dinnertime. The three men looked somewhat poleaxed.

"Rationing is that bad in old Blighty, is it?" Emily said.

"Well, the three of us live at a barracks," Barry drawled. "In barracks one tends to subsist on all things powdered or tinned."

"The last thing I had that didn't come out of a tin, was a carrot," Peter said. "It wasn't an especially nice carrot, but I only thought as much an hour after I'd rather eagerly polished it off."

"I'll send you on your way later with some apples and raisins," Miranda said.

"When last did I have raisins..." MacIlvray murmured.

"Miranda dries a literal half-ton of them during summer," Emily said, and followed Miranda to the doors. "We usually only give them to kids."

"I can try to look shorter," said MacIlvray, who was at least six feet tall.

"Oh, I'm sure. What else do they call you? Lamppost?" Emily ragged.

"Some'ing like," MacIlvray said with a grin.

"The sparks, they are flying," rumbled Henri, who'd been otherwise conspicuously silent.

"You noticed, too, huh?" Andy drawled. "Careful there, Cap'n MacEvil. Brandy's highly flammable."

"And I don't see a fire extinguisher anywhere close-to-hand," Peter said.

Peter was given a little shove, and MacIlvray harrumphed at his companions' laughter. Andy decided to call his bashfulness cute. She'd noted already that like many other men, he was rather young to hold the rank of captain. But she trusted the experience on his face and in his eyes and later, while Peter and Barry asked questions and took notes, Andy found herself addressing most of her answers to MacIlvray.

"You get to that place, halfway up a goddamn mountain, by a narrow, winding road," Andy said. "When we were taken there from the train station, they trucked us up, but we'd all been expecting a long walk somewhere. There was a little gap in the tarp over the truck. We took turns looking out of it and soon figured out why they used the trucks: that road's real steep."

"That's very useful info," Barry said.

"Yes, especially if we can commission aerial photographs," Peter said.

"Your spy there doesn't know where the camp is?" Andy asked.

"Not precisely. She and the other residents of the town are sure there _is_ a camp, somewhere, but they can't see it from the town."

"And she dares not go looking for it," MacIlvray said. "Did you ever hear anyone give that place a name?"

"Natzweiler or KLNa," Andy said. "The KL stands for _Konzentrationslager_. I heard several mentions of ' _KL_ ' and two other letters, sometimes also numbers. If you pick up any snippets of radio messages, or you get your hands on documents where ' _KL_ -something' is mentioned, they're talking about a camp or more than one. Also, our word 'commando' is nothing like the German ' _Kommando_ ,' which is a work-detail, but when mentioned in connection with a _KL_ , it's a smaller camp attached to the bigger one."

"Was there any mention of those in direct relation to Natzweiler?" Barry asked.

"I'm pretty sure that every mention of the word ' _Kommando_ ' involved one of those attached camps. Some of the guards seemed to be on rotation: one week at the camp, and one week somewhere else."

"And what about prisoners?" MacIlvray asked. "Were they moved about, too?"

"Yes, but that was a daily thing. They'd get taken to go work somewhere and then get brought back."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves somewhat. Let's just refocus a bit, please," Peter said. "What was your timeline, Andy?"

"I was grabbed on Thursday June tenth," Andy said. "But I'm still not sure what day it was when I got to the camp. Those guards use time, but not the days of the week, and if I hadn't known it was June when I got there, they'd never have said which month it was. First time I heard the date was when those _Maquisards_ grabbed me, east of Paris: August twenty-fifth. I'd been walking for a month by then, twenty-nine days... Well, nights. I dared not walk during the day."

"That's what kept you alive," Peter said. "So we can say that you escaped on or around the twenty-sixth of July."

"That's the date I settled on," Andy said, nodding.

"And what sort of work did you do as a prisoner?" Peter asked.

"Laundry. Day in, day out, I pressed and folded shirts."

"Uniform shirts?" Barry asked.

"Yeah. And I remember a silly thing, an ink-stain on a cuff, and I saw one of the camp officers wearing that shirt. I ended up pressing and folding it again, several times."

"Let's talk about officers," Peter said, scribbling on a notepad. "I'm going to give you this list of ranks, and you tell us about the senior-most whom you heard addressed at that camp."

Andy took the notepad and read through the list, she tapped a rank.

" _Hauptsturmführer_. Kramer is his name, SS sonuvabitch, and all the guards complained about him being a paperwork stickler. You said all those soldiers got demoted for covering up that so-called duel? Wouldn't surprise me if he made sure that happened. He didn't strike me as real smart, but anyone can cover that up by making sure to follow the rules and instructions to-the-letter."

"Overtly violent?" Barry asked.

"Uhh, that would be _everyone_ in SS _feldgrau_ uniforms," Andy said angrily. "I don't think anyone qualifies for the Schutzstaffel unless they can kick a day-old puppy. Kramer used to trip up prisoners and kick 'em. Skin'n'bones, nearly-dead, helpless prisoners. For some of them, that kick was the end."

"These monsters have to be stopped," Peter muttered.

"No-one's ever gonna believe that every Kraut soldier is a monster," Andy said. "That's cos they're not. Go spend time in Paris and you'll meet some of the nicest German soldiers in the world. Thing is, as nice as they are, they all know exactly what's going on at places like Natzweiler. The officers especially: there's no way they can't know. And at that camp I heard a guard complaining that she should've been assigned to the camp close to her hometown _in_ Germany. That means that the German people also know what's going on in those fucking camps."

"That's a chilling thought," MacIlvray said.

"Isn't it?" Barry said, shaking his head. "In that other life that I led before the war, I was a psychologist. Still am, I suppose. And I tell you, none of this, none of what Germany is doing, is covered by any theory that I've studied; it's not in any book that I've read. I want to call it mass-hysteria, but it's too well-organized. However, I am sure that Hitler is utterly insane."

"Maybe the new scary disease is contagious insanity," Andy said. "Sure seems that way to me."

"And me," Emily said. "The only problem with our theory is that the both of us have been near those ruddy Gerry bastards in Paris, and we're still sane."

"I find the same fault with your theory," Miranda drawled.

"Me, too," Henri said. "But maybe you shouldn't count my vote, because I have only been near very-very dead _Boche_."

"Well, the contagion might require listening to Hitler's speeches too often," said MacIlvray.

"I say, I think you're right, MacIlvray," Peter chuckled. "Those _screeches_ are enough to drive anyone barmy."

"I refuse to be scientific," Barry said, amused. "Let's just settle on that theory, shall we?"

Andy recognized that diplomatically-phrased version of 'Now children, that's enough,' and it seemed that everyone else had as well. Even more diplomatic, Barry let Peter ask the next question.

"You mentioned a female guard, Andy. How many were there?"

"There weren't many women at that camp, so only a few female guards– I never counted more than ten on duty. I once saw a bunch of female guards touring the place, looked like they were being trained, or something."

"Did you ever make a count of the other female prisoners?"

"Not an accurate count, but I'm damn sure there were less than two-hundred when I was there. We did upkeep stuff, like laundry, and some women cleaned the camp offices and staff quarters, washed windows, and generally kept the whole camp tidy. The only time I got a break from laundry was to help mow the lawn around the admin block, and that was because I was the only one strong enough to handle the push-mower. I think the bulk of the women and some of the men worked to make clay pots. They had a press-mold—stick a lump of clay in the mold, and then push on a lever and it pushes a negative in and makes a pot. Then they put trays of them into a firing kiln."

" _Pots?_ Flower pots?" Peter asked.

"I dunno. Maybe?"

"All right..." Peter said. "Did you see other female prisoners arrive at all?"

"Once, a small group, but I never got to talk to them and they pretty much disappeared. I dunno if they were killed or sent somewhere else."

" _Killed?_ " Barry said.

"There's a crematorium at that camp," Andy said. "And there's an old farmhouse. People would get taken in there, would get marched in– usually they'd be sick or hurt. They'd be carried out, dead. I never got close enough to see how, but I never heard gunshots."

"We've heard rumors that the Germans are using gas," Barry said.

"Gas, what, like chlorine or mustard gas?" Andy asked.

"Perhaps, but likely something else that's lethal though less likely to also kill the bastards using it."

"Phosgene?" Peter suggested.

"Phosgene is far too dangerous: the slightest breeze... And mustard gas lasts too long," Barry said. "Unless you mean that those bodies were removed from the house a day or two later?"

"No, same day," Andy said. "Those poor men would usually go in there around noon, and before three or so, other prisoners would carry 'em out."

"That's not mustard gas, for certs," MacIlvray said. "But I think they must be using a gas. They're deporting thousands."

"Gas would be the most—sorry: expedient method of execution," Peter said. And: "Hang on a minute. Crematorium. _Pots_. Urns, for ashes?"

"This only gets worse," Henri muttered.

"You're right, because we don't know the half of it," Barry said. "I mean, we know that they're shooting people– civilians, POWs, excess concentration camp prisoners—"

"They work us to death, too," Andy said, shaking her head. She wanted to cry but she held it back. "Most of the men I saw in that camp were like walking skeletons. We got one meal a day, some kinda thin soup. I think I lost twenty pounds in my first week there... Let's keep on with this drill, okay? I'm getting to the point where I don't wanna talk about it anymore."

"Of course," Barry said. "Was there any indication that they were going to send you, or anyone else, to another place?"

"There was one group of men sent off in six trucks, and they never came back; later that week four full trucks of new prisoners arrived. Then there were the men who got collected and brought back every day. One group was working in a factory, I think, and I'm pretty sure they got fed there, got bread at least, because they weren't as thin as the others. Their clothes were always greasy—mechanic kinda greasy, and their hands were usually black."

"Probably fitters and turners," Barry said to Peter.

"They'd be considered valuable enough to feed," Peter said, nodding, and he double-underlined a note. "We know that there are quarries in that area. Do you think prisoners worked at that sort of labor?"

"Those would be the dusty fellas," Andy said. "Most of them, in other words. Those greasy fellas were a pretty small group, maybe a hundred, but not as many as a hundred-twenty. I know cos they fit into three trucks, forty men to a truck, but the third was only about half-full."

"Andy, did you ever make a daily count of trucks leaving or returning?" MacIlvray asked.

"You're joshing, right?" Andy drawled. "If I'd stood that long, counting anything other than shirts, I'd have gotten hanged or shot. My second week there they made an example of one of the prisoners. Kramer told the guards to tie that poor man's hands behind his back and they hung him up by his hands from a big hook. The pain eventually made him pass out. They made us all stand and watch that. And then he's hanging there, unconscious, and some asshole officer, who was _visiting_ , walked up and shot him in the head. He actually asked if he could do it cos he hadn't shot anyone in a while."

"My God," Barry said.

"Did that man do anything specific, or was he just picked out as an example?" MacIlvray asked.

"We were all told that he tried to escape," Andy said. "But he denied it. He was Hungarian, and the woman next to me said that he was saying over and again that the truck drove off while he was trying to get into it. And they found him on the road, walking _back_ to camp. So he was telling the truth. Didn't matter."

"Those bastards just wanted someone to kill," Miranda said, anger making her voice even quieter than it usually was. "I'll wager they set the whole thing up for that visiting officer."

"I agree," Peter said. "I can even see the poor beggar being left behind on purpose."

"Yes, especially if someone had picked up on his personality," Barry said. "They'd want someone easy to catch, and there'd be none easier to catch than the sort of chap who'd go back to camp, possibly to save others from getting into trouble."

"That's what the woman said he was saying, why he came back," Andy said. "I think people like him make those bastards feel bad. I mean, we're _untermenschen_ , right? We're not supposed to be good and kind and courageous, and when those Nazis get faced with the fact that we're all of those things, I think it makes them real uncomfortable."

"So they fix that," Henri said. "Easy, with a bullet."

"Pity they don't all bloody-well shoot themselves," Emily said through her teeth.

Andy agreed with a grunt and she noticed that Miranda's expression had become closed, distant, a sure sign that she had long since passed the place where she was merely angry.

Andy had expected to be asked about the night she'd escaped, but the three men skirted the issue, clearly more interested in the camp itself. Andy understood that focus. She kept reminding herself of how the place had looked, of how the other prisoners had looked. She felt that forgetting would be shameful and, as she'd proven tonight, remembering was useful. At least, she hoped so.

"Is all this information gonna be used somehow?" Andy asked.

"If we know where a camp might be, when the bloody Gerries are pushed out of France, we'll be able send men straight to the camp," Barry said. "The Gerries are just about starving those poor blighters. I doubt they'll be left any provisions when the guards scarper, so we'll need to get people to that camp quickly."

"They might kill everyone before they pull out," Andy said.

"That's a possibility, but not one I'd like to gamble on," Peter said.

"Nor me," Barry said and looked at his watch. "Right, lads. We'd better get a move-on."

"Where are you lot off to, then?" Emily asked.

"There's a Spaniard coming to fetch us, and by morning we'll have split up to meet with other people," MacIlvray said and stood. He shook Andy's hand firmly. "Maybe we'll meet again."

"Yeah. Don't get shot or caught," Andy said.

"We'll all do our damn'dest in that regard," Peter said.

The men left at a little after one a.m, and Andy scowled at the clock in the kitchen: that late and she wasn't tired. She didn't have a word for how she felt– not restless and not agitated, but neither was she calm. She felt almost like she had when she'd first started drinking coffee, and had tended to have too much. If the night passed in an eyeblink and the sun rose, she felt certain of being able to put in a full day's work.

As had become her habit, Andy took a glass of sherry out onto the porch. The breeze was downright cold, but she turned up the lapels of her military greatcoat, and huddling into her corner kept her a little warmer, as did sips of the sherry. That glass was a third gone when the kitchen door opened and Miranda stepped outside: boots, greatcoat, a scarf, _and_ gloves. And she looked right at Andy this time.

"I object: it's not a nice night for it," Miranda drawled.

"You're out here," Andy said pointedly.

"Mmm."

Miranda sat on the bench with a slight bump, crossed her legs at the knee, and arranged the skirt of her coat over them. She didn't have a drink this time, but Andy didn't even think about it and offered Miranda the glass of sherry. She took the glass without comment and had a sip, and gave it back, and the glass made occasional trips back-and-forth over a slow half-hour. Neither woman said a word, and that was all right; Andy knew it was all right both ways. Sometimes companionship alone was enough, and tonight it was.

When she finally got to sleep, Andy had mildly pleasant dreams for a change, and when she woke she lit the lamp and answered Emily's typical morning scowl with a smile.

"What're you so bloody cheerful about?" Emily grumbled.

"I'm alive and kicking, and I intend to kick some Kraut ass," said Andy.

"Jolly good, even I'm on board with that," Emily chuckled.

~ ~ ~

Henri straightened up from strategic placement of a burlap sack. He yelled at the driver of an ancient tractor and the man nodded, engaged reverse gear, and backed up so that one enormous back wheel went over the sack. At Henri's hand signal, the driver engaged first and rolled that big wheel over the sack again.

"This had better not wreck 'em," Andy said, arms folded, glaring at Henri.

"Trust me, _chérie_ ," Henri rumbled.

He waved the tractor driver on his way, and retrieved the multiply-folded sack and its contents. Andy helped him to cut the twine holding the layers of burlap in place, and the contents were soon visible: a pair of American paratrooper boots. Andy looked at them suspiciously because they showed no sign at all of having been under the wheel of a tractor, twice.

"The sacking keeps them safe, but they will be softer now, I assure you," Henri insisted.

Andy sat on a bench outside the dairy shed and took off her old boots, and two of the three pairs of socks she'd been wearing to keep her feet from sliding around inside those too-big boots. These new boots were the right size, but they'd been so stiff that only an hour of wearing them had been enough to give her blisters. She'd tried again when the blisters had healed up, and had taken the boots off before they'd given her more blisters. Emily had suggested dunking them in boiling water, as she'd done with her own, but Henri had insisted there was a better way. Hence the tractor.

"If you were heavier, these boots would be tame by now," Henri said. "You think men have less trouble only because our skin is thicker? _Mais non_ , it's because we are heavier."

"That makes sense," Andy said, busy with laces. "Okay. Lemme march around..."

Her first step caused her eyebrows to arch in surprise, and after several more steps, Andy gave Henri an impulsive hug. He grinned and told her to keep the boots on for the rest of the day, even if her feet got a little sore.

"Because now your feet must learn also to be friends with the boots. And I know someone who will fit in your old boots."

"Sure," Andy said. "Way too big for me, even with three pairs of socks... That group of scouts is coming by tonight, right?"

"The man who needs the boots, he is one of them," Henri said, nodding. "These are the men who have been spying for _la Renarde_ , and also making the count."

" _Count?_ " Andy queried.

"In this big triangle, between Orléans and Lyon and Paris, they have been everywhere, counting all the people Miranda can call to her... Call to her? Call up?"

"'Call up' is better," Andy said. "How many, d'you think?"

"Maybe one-thousand, and all of them with weapons," Henri said. "That is much, _oui?_ "

Andy agreed and didn't bother to hide her surprise.

More of a surprise lay in store that night. Fifteen men sat on benches and on the floor in the brandy cellar, each with brandy in their tin mugs. This was the first evening that they'd gathered as a group in more than three months. They'd been split into five groups of three but they'd all been to the same villages and farmsteads, and had hunted up small groups of _Maquis_ hiding in woods and forests here and there. The idea had been to make the count five times, and if their figures remained steady five times in a row, then those figures were solid.

Tonight Miranda sat at a table with Andy and each of them worked addition sums from many small scraps of paper. They both came up with the same figure.

"One-thousand-eight-hundred-and-seventy-four," Miranda announced.

There was silence for a while, but only for a while: cheering broke the silence into little pieces, and Henri had to shout to get the small crowd to shut up. He reminded them that this cellar could stand as a bomb shelter, but it wasn't soundproof.

"All right," one of the men said in French. "But this is wonderful news."

"Yes, we are a _force!_ We're almost an army," said another.

"Almost," Miranda said. "In this coming year, I think we'll be very busy."

"We will," Emily said and tapped the side of her nose with her finger. "Take my word on it, gentlemen."

"Your people will make airdrops, with more weapons?" a man asked.

"Count on it," Emily said firmly.

"Then we will soon have more people even than nearly two-thousand."

The scouts all agreed with that, and some of them gave reports of places that they'd visited where they'd been asked for weapons.

"I think as many as another five-hundred."

"Maybe even more than that."

"To be on the safe side, I'll request six-hundred Stens," Emily said.

"We have a hundred in stock," Andy said. "As well as two-hundred-thousand rounds of ammunition."

"We can part with some of the ammo," Emily said. "But we need to keep that little stockpile of Stens."

"So we can replace broken ones," Nigel drawled.

"We will train the new people better," Henri said. "There will be fewer fucked-up guns. You wait, you see."

"I'll wait and see," Nigel said, his tone dripping with skepticism.

The men laughed, because they knew exactly where Nigel was coming from, and Andy knew, too. By now she was training a few new people herself, and she had to constantly remind her little group _not_ to hold the Sten by the magazine. She repeatedly told them that the canvas or leather cover over the barrel shroud hadn't been added to make the Sten look pretty: "Grip it _there!_ " Andy would say, over and again.

"I think those barrel shroud covers should be stamped with 'Your hand _here_ ,'" Andy drawled. "In French and English, too."

"That's a really good idea," Emily chortled. "I'll pass it on, shall I?"

Miranda and several men agreed before Andy could even open her mouth, but she added her agreement anyway. She didn't know if it would help all that much, but as with everything else, the effort had to be made before anyone could know for sure.

For the rest of the evening Andy sat and listened to what Emily always called 'intel': while making a tally of fighters, these men had also been spying. Mostly, they'd been careful to gauge the country folk's attitude toward the current political situation.

As the war wore on, and as the Vichy government lost more and more power to the Germans, so the country folk, in particular, had begun to withdraw their support for anyone even remotely supportive of that collaborative government. As Andy had understood it, there'd always been a certain level of distrust of Marshall Pétain's government among country people. They especially didn't like the fact that under Vichy authoritarianism, France was now supposedly a state and not a republic. They'd even done away with the Republic's beloved motto of " _Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité_ —Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood" and had replaced it with " _Travail, Famille, Patrie_ —Work, Family, Fatherland."

"Makes us sound like the _Boche_ ," a man muttered. "We don't say ' _le_ France,' we say ' _la_ France,' because this country is a mother to us."

All of his colleagues agreed, as did Henri, and Andy noticed that Miranda was allowing the men to grumble and commiserate for a while. One of them brought up the point of the Vichy administration cracking down on France's proud tradition of _laissez faire_ —a free market that allowed farmers to ask fair prices while still engaging in competition.

"The bottom line," Miranda added. "Is that we country people know better than anyone that the Reign of Terror, of Seventeen-ninety-three, was not so very long ago. I think the Vichy's worst mistake, as it affects the French people, was to fix food prices. A good government may set price controls, a range between this price and that to ensure fair prices, but fixing food prices is sure to enrage people."

"I agree with that," the man said, nodding. "Yes, there is a war, but if we could still adjust prices, there would be no black market. Even with the _Boche_ everywhere, we could simply stop producing—"

"The old tradition!" a man agreed.

" _Oui_ ," Henri said. "You don't pay our prices, we won't grow those vegetables or put enough cows in-calf to get milk to supply the market. We could have broken even the _Boche_."

"But no, the stupid _Vichyste_ went and fucked it all up."

"You said it," Henri said, nodding. "The _Vichyste_ and Pétain didn't open their eyes, didn't see that the _Boche_ needed them to boss this country. If they had..."

Henri didn't need to finish that sentence. Andy had lived in Paris where the Germans hardly ever did anything themselves, especially not the dirty work of rounding up Jews and Gypsies and communists, and anyone else on the Nazis' list of people to detain and deport. The Paris police did all of that work. The French administrative authority was nothing but a tool, and the occupying Germans bossed that tool. They also didn't have to have as many soldiers here as they might've, had the Vichy government realized that the occupiers would've had to do a lot more work without _Vichyste_ help.

One of the men mentioned that particular point, and Miranda pounced on it, asking about German patrols.

"Like ripples, when you throw a stone in a pond," a man said. "Close to the cities and some towns, more patrols. Further away, and the ripples are less."

"And weak," another said. "We watched around the smaller villages: _Boche_ soldiers sometimes arrive—not every day, and just a few, no more than twelve. They walk around or even just ride in their trucks, and then they go away."

"But there's no schedule?" Emily asked.

"No, there is. At this village, every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, and again on Saturdays. That other village, only Monday mornings. This one they only patrol on Tuesdays and Sundays, and only in the afternoons."

"The same soldiers patrol around the same group of villages, either in the morning or in the afternoon."

"What about after dark?" Andy asked.

"Only close to the cities."

"Close to their bases," another man clarified.

"So they can call up reinforcements," Emily said.

"Patrol sizes at night?" Miranda asked.

"Always double, usually twenty four, but once we counted forty."

"That night they were looking for someone: they had dogs."

"All right," Miranda said. "Tell me about the railway lines."

The men described a well-organized system of properly-manned patrols, this despite the fact that Germany needed to send more men to the fronts. It seemed that someone somewhere was smart enough to recognize the fact that if France's railways were not guarded, disaster was likely to befall the Occupation forces currently in the country.

"But we know their patrols better now. Damaging the lines is still possible."

"The patrols always move. They march up the line two kilometers, and back two kilometers."

"And they time it, so each patrol walks in the same direction, and stops, then turns back, at the same time."

"What?" Andy said. "That's not smart. I mean, irregularity would make it hard to predict where those soldiers will be at any time. Instead, you can use their set patrols against them, easily."

"We think so, too," one of the men said. "Also because they are not clever about strategic points, like switch-tracks: they walk past points like that; they don't walk _to_ those points."

"If a switch was an endpoint," the first man said. "Then one patrol would always be walking to that point, because when a patrol reaches it and turns around, the patrol behind them is now walking to that switch-track."

"Anyone fiddling with the track might be seen," Emily said.

"Right, but instead they walk past, and we can run up literally behind their backs, lay a charge, run away, and _BOOM!_ "

"I want you to spread the word," Miranda said and got to her feet. "For the next month, our targets are sections of switch-track. If at all possible, avoid confrontation. Just make a mess of the German supply lines... Goodnight, everyone. Don't get too drunk."

The men greeted Miranda and thanked her for the brandy, all of them grinning broadly, and Andy guessed that they intended to drink all of the bottles Miranda had set out for them.

"I'm off to bed, too," Emily said and surreptitiously jabbed Andy in the ribs.

"Yeah, real early start tomorrow," Andy said.

The men, Nigel and Henri included, tried to cajole them into sticking around but the two women argued firmly about that early start and made tracks out of the cellar. Emily shut the steel doors and she and Andy looked at each other for a while.

"They'd better not end up spew-up drunk, not in _there_ ," Andy said.

"I think Nigel and Henri will babysit them... At least, I hope so," said Emily.

"Let's not think about this anymore."

"You're the one who started down that path."

"Forget I said anything," Andy groaned and linked her arm into Emily's. "C'mon... Fuckin' cold, yeesh..."

"And this is only the start of it," Emily said while they marched towards the house. "But cold weather makes a cuppa that much more enjoyable."

"Cold weather's the only time I like tea."

"Uncultured Yank."

"Stuck-up Limey."

"I could be a lot more stuck-up, you really have no idea," Emily chortled.

"Don't tell me you have a title," Andy said, laughing.

"Landed gentry, no less, but don't you dare tell anyone else that," Emily said. "The French have an automatic hatred of anyone even resembling nobility."

"Thankfully, you're not in the least noble," Andy quipped.

"I choose to take that as a compliment," Emily said, grinning.

"Was meant as one," Andy said with a laugh. Her smile faded, and just as they walked into the kitchen, she said, "None of my old friends would get that kinda joke."

"Would you like to send them word that you're all right?" Emily said and locked the door.

"They're Americans," Andy said, shaking her head. "Knowing that I'm all right would never be enough for them. They'd want explanations, details; they'd wanna know how the messenger knows that I'm okay. If that person doesn't tell them where I am, they'll try to find out—"

"And probably get themselves and us into deep trouble," Emily said, nodding. She set a kettle on the range and said, "What is it about you Americans, and thinking you've a right to it all?"

Emily wasn't being accusatory, just curious. Andy thought at first to just shrug and change the subject, but she found herself objecting to Emily's use of that inclusive 'you.'

"I'm not like that anymore," Andy said. "But I was, once, though I wouldn't have put it quite that way—wouldn't have put it any-which-way, mostly cos we need it pointed out, or we need some distance to see it for ourselves... Our parents and our politicians tell us over and over that ours is the greatest country in the world, that we're the best at everything. But when it comes to wanting to know everything, that links back to 'Don't take No for an answer,' something we're told regularly: we only take No from our parents and other people in charge... I guess all of that leads to a lot of Americans thinking that they're always right."

"That _they_ are always right, hmm?" Emily said pointedly.

"Like I said, that's not me, not anymore. Getting tossed in a cage is real humbling, I tell ya."

"Did you ever tell those bastards that you're an American?"

"Wouldn't have mattered," Andy said with a shrug. "Everyone they grabbed that night was Jewish, all of us. I think that the worse things get for the Krauts, the harder they're gonna work on wiping out as many Jews as they can."

"I agree."

Andy turned in her seat and gave Miranda a half-smile, and Emily offered her a cup of tea. Miranda accepted and sat at the table, and Andy decided that she liked Miranda in a brocade smoking jacket, though Andy supposed that it was filling the role of a bathrobe. Emily added extra tea-leaves to the teapot, and muttered about the water on the range taking its time to boil.

"Then again, when it comes to tea, it's never fast enough," Emily said wryly.

"That's how I feel about coffee," Miranda said. "As for the German attitude to towards Jews: we are every one of us officially regarded as partisans, even our children, even our aged. We are considered the first enemy of Germany, and yes, they'll seek to destroy us first, even when they're under direct threat of bombings and bombardments. They'll continue to freight Jews into those camps even when the Russians and Allies have pushed right up to Berlin."

"The Gerries are all barking mad," Emily said.

"I won't argue with that," Andy said. "I used to think the regular Wehrmacht soldiers were different to the Nazis, different to the SS. But they're not. They know what's going on, and they're going along with it."

"As you said to our three SOE friends not so long ago, _every_ German is going along with it," Miranda said, anger tingeing her tone. "No-one in that country can claim to be ignorant. They know, and the majority of them aren't doing a damned thing to stop it; they're not even complaining about it."

"That's just about unforgivable," Andy said.

"Forgiveness is the battle we'll all have to fight, and win, when this war's over," Emily said quietly. "Look at Germany: lost the Great War, refused to forgive, deliberately bred hatred: now we're all stuck in _this_ ruddy war. Learning to forgive is what we need to keep us out of wars."

"Where've you been hiding that philosopher?" Miranda chuckled.

"Generally up my sleeve," Emily said and blushed a little. "She creeps out occasionally... But I tell you, Jews around the world will all be forgiven for never forgiving Germany."

"You got a lot to learn," Andy drawled. "We'll forgive. We got a few thousand years practice at forgiving. This business of Germany trying to wipe us out is nothing new."

"It's just better organized," Miranda said, nodding. And: "Which isn't surprising."

"Organized, disciplined, and efficient, very German characteristics," Andy agreed, holding onto a straight face. "Just think: what if Pharaoh or Hadrian had been a German?"

Miranda snorted a laugh and Andy gave up and grinned. Emily looked from one to the other, and shook her head.

"You're joking about this?" Emily mumbled.

"If all else fails, laugh," Miranda said.

"Right. We've been making jokes about persecution almost since Creation," Andy said. "You really think we're gonna stop now?"

"I see your point," Emily said, and poured the tea.

There was nothing to laugh about several days later, when one of Tomas' men came in to report that a German soldier had been killed while Tomas and his crew had blown up a section of switch-track. It appeared that the soldier had left his patrol group in order to relieve himself, and he was abruptly seen jogging alongside the tracks, just as Tomas had twisted the handle on the detonator. It had been an accident, but that wouldn't matter at all.

For two days Andy and everyone else waited for the inevitable. No-one slept well—there were occasions when there was a sleepless crowd in Miranda's kitchen, all of them silent, the air around them thick and heavy with dread. The waiting was almost as bad as that inevitable news.

A runner came in at last, his youthful face streaked with tears: five civilians had been executed in reprisal for the soldier's death, and one had been a boy no older than the young runner.

"Who did it?" Henri asked. "The _Boche_ or the _milice?_ "

"Both," the boy said and nodded his thanks to Miranda for a glass of milk. "I saw them counting their men, the ones who would shoot: ten _Boche_ soldiers and five _milice_. The _milice_ were laughing, first, saying they were lucky to get a share."

"But I bet they looked sick afterwards, huh?" Andy said, and her blood was boiling.

"I don't know. I didn't look," the boy mumbled. "But after the shooting, the _Boche_ were talking, but not the _milice_. They said nothing, just went away."

"Can you name the _milice?_ " Miranda asked.

" _Oui_ ," the boy said firmly. "Are you going to kill them?"

"No, I just make lists," Miranda said. "And when this war is over..."

"Then they die," Henri said and walked away.

The expression on Henri's face had frightened Andy enough that her anger simmered down to a bare prickle. The Germans would retreat or surrender, eventually, but the collaborators would be left behind. Andy guessed that those people would suffer, many would be killed, and she was damn sure that the idea of fair trials would be conveniently forgotten for a long while.

Andy didn't really know how she felt anymore, about the concept of a fair trial. There were people she'd met face-to-face who genuinely deserved to be stood against a wall and shot, like _Hauptsturmführer_ Kramer, and every one of the Gestapo bastards who regularly tortured people in the basement rooms of No. 11 Rue de Saussaies. Likewise, the _milice_ members involved in today's execution of civilians had given up their rights to be treated fairly. If she was asked, Andy would firmly vote for no trial for any of those people. They didn't deserve trials.

But there were people in Paris and other cities, women especially and many of them mothers, who had had no choice but to be friendly with German officers. Andy had known several of those women. Their husbands had either been killed before France's surrender, or those men had been forced onto trains at gunpoint, sent to work as laborers in Germany and other places. Andy's gut told her that many of those men had been worked to death by now. If that wasn't bad enough, their wives had been robbed of their jobs by the Vichy government, which had forced many companies and shops and restaurants to immediately dismiss any married women. The Vichy regime had insisted on that without thinking that those women still had to somehow feed their children.

Andy had already seen what happened to known female collaborators: if they ventured into the wrong parts of Paris, they were caught, their hair was shorn, and they were allowed to go free. Their freedom was perhaps the worst punishment, because with shorn hair those women were no longer attractive to German officers. That shorn hair also marked them as collaborators to other Parisians, and those women were unlikely to receive any help.

"The men either hide their collaboration, or they're open about it and stick close to their asshole _milice_ buddies," Andy said. "But the women are... It's an impossible situation."

"Sometimes," Miranda said.

Emily hesitated and then nodded in agreement. Andy frowned and found herself almost studying the way Miranda tapped the end of a cigarette on the table, to tamp the tobacco, and she lit it with a match. The match was waved out but to Andy it seemed that darkness swallowed that small light. Tonight there was the drone of planes overhead—Allied bombers on their way to their targets, and the three women had the light of only a storm lantern, one of the small ones that was probably about twenty-five years old, if not older. It burned with a dull orange glow that threw jagged, wavering shadows.

"What did you mean by _sometimes?_ " Andy asked.

"There are a lot of women who didn't rest until they got help from their fellow French, or from people like me," Miranda said. "But yes, there are women, especially those who were mothers of newborns, who had to find help faster. For them collaboration was unavoidable, and they should be forgiven, pardoned, understood. However, there are also women who made a deliberate, conscious choice to collaborate, right from the start... How do you tell the difference between the two, especially when every one of them will be protesting complete innocence, when the Germans are forced out of France?"

"I wouldn't like to be the one asked to judge the difference," Emily said. "Not when it's possible that some of those women are responsible for the deaths of whomever they talked about. Andy, it's possible that a woman you knew sold you out to the Gestapo."

"No, I'm sure it was that new fella who—"

"And who suggested that he should join your lectures, hmm?" Miranda said.

"I don't know," Andy murmured.

"But now you're trying to think of who it could've been," Emily said. "And I'm almost certain that you know of at least one woman who might've been the one to talk. That's everyone else, too. They're all in your boat: they all know someone who was picked up or even killed, and they also know of at least one woman who might've been the one to sell them out."

"So it's bad news for the women who made their choice," Miranda said. "And it's just as much bad news for the women who had no choice at all. Can we help the ones who didn't have a choice? I'll try, even Henri will try, but we're going to be outnumbered, and sometimes we ourselves will have no choice but to live with our consciences, and step back."

"I dunno if I can do that," Andy said, thinking of the woman who'd been her neighbor. She'd been one of those women who'd never given up hope that her neighbors and friends would help her, and like Andy, they had helped. "Because there are also those women who've never collaborated, who might be suspected of collaboration just because they've managed to survive. When the Krauts are out, you two know as well as I do that people who left Paris and other cities, will go back. They won't know the truth for sure. Mobs just act; they're like that. And then?"

"Think of names," Miranda said. "Write them down. We'll bring those women here. That's all we dare do. And you must know that even if they're here, those women will be questioned, and seeing as they can't stay here forever, they're liable to face more questions when they leave."

"They might even have it worse," Emily said. "I have to be honest: whoever comes here might be thought guilty because they went into hiding. If they stay where they are, they have a better chance of people speaking up for them."

Andy covered her face with her hands and shook her head behind them. _Dear God, what a mess we're in_ , she thought. She wanted to suggest that they pile into a car and go and fetch women now, thinking that if they could get those women out of Paris before the Germans packed up and left, it might help. But even though it was late, even though Andy was tired, her brain returned a But: _But I don't really know which of them I can trust_. Not even her neighbor– Andy could no longer say for sure that even that woman was a hundred percent trustworthy, and no-one who wasn't trustworthy could be brought here. Emily, Miranda, and the others had taken a gamble trusting Andy, all with the odds stacked against them.

"What a fucking mess," Andy muttered. She rubbed her face and had a sip of black tea that had been 'doctored' with brandy. She didn't want to admit it, but she did: "I don't even know if I can trust my three American friends anymore."

"Even if you can, it's better for them that you don't," Miranda said.

"Whoever talks about anything at all, might be overheard," Emily said in agreement. "Anyway, as you said, there's also the possibility of them trying to find you... Given that racket south of us, Gerry won't last here much longer."

The distant bombing sounded almost like thunder, and Andy shuddered, thinking of the people directly under those bombs. The Germans had bombed Paris in early June of 1940, and Andy and her three friends had narrowly escaped becoming victims of one of those bombs. She still couldn't work out how only two-hundred-and-fifty-four people had been killed that afternoon.

"At least broad-daylight bombings are a thing of the past," Andy said. "I think they're scarier: we all heard that fucking Stuka dive-bomber, looked up and saw it coming right at us, and we literally ran away from it, to one side. But none of us thought we'd get away, so we're all running like hell, thinking _I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die_. I'd really rather just give it up to God and hope that the bombs falling in the dark don't hit me."

"You _saw_ the Stuka?" Emily said, blinking. "You weren't in a shelter?"

"We were on our way to a basement," said Andy. "So yeah, we were stuck out in the open in an air-raid. Best advice I can give anyone: try real hard to avoid that."

"I concur, excellent advice," Miranda said.

"Yes," Emily drawled, shaking her head. She got up and said, "Just off to check in and give my report."

"Didya double-check your code?" Andy asked.

"Triple-checked," Emily said.

She left the kitchen via the basement stairs, and as usual locked and bolted the door from the inside. The radio was down there but the antenna was artfully hidden in a tree—so artfully hidden that Andy didn't know which tree. Emily wasn't gone long. She'd sent a seemingly garbled string of dot-dash code that wasn't even proper Morse. It was a private code between Emily and a particular radio contact, and not even their superiors were privy to the formula needed to crack it. If Emily had especially important information to relay, she used another code that the Germans might be able to crack in a couple of weeks (by which time that particular code-book would've expired), but that any SOE operator could decipher in only a minute or two.

"Did he send anything back?" Miranda asked.

"Yes, regarding the civilians shot: _Bloody bad luck_ ," Emily said, sounding weary. She topped their cups with what remained of the tea, and Miranda dealt with adding half-tots of brandy. Emily muttered, "Sodding horrible luck. We've really got to keep up with wrecking railway lines, but we have to make sure that we steer clear of killing Gerry soldiers. I think Henri's idea of using lookouts is a sound one."

"Someone else with binoculars, on the other side of the tracks," Andy said, nodding.

"The trouble is, what signal do they use?" Miranda said.

"A flash, or two if the coast's not clear," Andy said. "If the flashlight's small and has its lens taped down to a slit..."

"Yes, you'll have to know where it'll be flashed to see it," Emily agreed.

"All right. Have that sent out tomorrow," Miranda said.

"Will do," Emily said.

Andy wondered if _she'd_ ever be 'sent out tomorrow'– Emily had gone along on sabotage raids twice in the last week. The only especially exciting thing Andy had done since she'd arrived here had involved riding a horse cross-country in the middle of the night to deliver a message to someone, a message about eggs and when to come and collect them. Actually, the only thing 'exciting' about that little venture had hinged on the fact that anyone seen riding a horse was likely to be shot at by the Germans, hence Andy's after dark three-miles-there-three-back ride, several miles from any road.

"She's got that restless 'Let-me-at-them' look again," Emily said to Miranda.

"You have to lose that look," Miranda told Andy. "And you need to have a proper grip on the emotions causing it."

"You've got to be really self-disciplined to get any of this work right," Emily said. "Mistakes on our part get people killed, remember?"

"Yes," Andy said quietly.

~ ~ ~


	2. Chapter 2

**_TWO_ **

On a bright but cold morning in mid-November, a boy on a bicycle came speeding to the chateau and presented Miranda with a note; he raced away again as soon as he'd been tipped with a half-dozen eggs carefully packed in hay. After she'd read the note Miranda had a word with Emily, and the note went into the Sougland-Aisne stove in the kitchen. Emily packed a bag, changed into city clothes, and was soon whisked away by someone in an ancient Citroën.

The last time it had been Nigel who'd 'jaunted off for a recce' as Emily was wont to put it, and twice before that Emily had been the one to 'jaunt off.' Those three trips had come to nothing, but Miranda's gut was telling her that today would be different.

She got on with her work and, barring Emily's absence, the day proceeded as would've any other day. So good had Miranda become at the fine art of keeping up appearances that not even Nigel twigged to the reality that today was going to be different.

Keeping up appearances was something that various SOE agents, Emily included, had impressed upon Miranda as being of utmost importance. It seemed somewhat obvious that an appearance of normalcy tended to cultivate an acceptance of normalcy, but Miranda had learned that the idea of normalcy was the first to brew complacency on the part of any enemy. This was how various SOE-connected _Résistance_ contacts managed to operate right under the noses of the Nazis in Paris: those contacts were never suspected because they were careful to maintain various routines.

Miranda often wished that the OSS, the American Office of Strategic Services, rather much an inexperienced apprentice-counterpart of the British SOE, could somehow be made to see that keeping up appearances was a much better weapon than stirring up trouble. The British were collecting intelligence, collating it, and analyzing it before putting it to use. The American OSS brass kept insisting that their agents had to grab whatever information they could and use it immediately to 'get results' (Miranda's most hated phrase). That strategy—if it could be called that—often got people killed. Worse yet, word had reached Miranda that beyond France, in Italy, the OSS was blatantly refusing to cooperate with the SOE and were in fact attempting to _compete_ with them, as if this business of inspiring and supporting resistance movements was a game to be won. Needless to say, and despite the fact that she herself was an American, Miranda had made certain not to tie herself to the OSS.

Today, if her gut-instinct proved correct, Miranda would be reinforcing that distinct separation.

She kept up appearances until around noon, when another note was delivered to her. Miranda sought out Andy and found her re-bedding the planter boxes used to start new grapevine stocks.

"We're going to the city," Miranda said.

"We are?" Andy mumbled. "Orléans or Paris?"

"Paris. Emily's bringing things for you to wear. She'll be here in an hour or so. Get cleaned up, and while you're waiting you can look at the books and let me know just how much brandy I'll be distilling this winter."

"All right," Andy said and walked away. She turned, walking backwards, and said, "Last I checked, you had around twelve-hundred liters of _cuvée_ to work with."

"As much as that?" said Miranda. "Then we'll need to order—"

"More aging casks. Who'll see to that? Thierry?"

"Him and his brother," Miranda said.

Andy nodded and, turning again, she jogged towards the house, and Miranda admitted to herself that she was rather impressed with the speed with which Andy was picking up certain aspects of work here. The last thing Miranda had expected from Andy was that she'd have found out who Miranda's preferred coopers were, especially given the fact that many men in this area could claim to be expert coopers.

A large stand of Blois oak bordered the northeast corner of Miranda's land and for the last three-hundred years those trees had been tended almost as children by the men of this region. Wood for the staves was not in short supply, but the metal for the _barrique_ hoops was an issue: there was good money in collecting scrap metal and selling it. When last Miranda had heard, Thierry and his brother had found an ancient tank from the Great War and had hoarded chunks of it, to be smelted and sand-cast into pig-iron at their coal forge hidden away somewhere. Miranda had no idea where or how they got their coal, and as was the custom these days, she had no intention of asking. It was probably better not to know.

Emily returned at around two p.m, and she looked annoyed: there were times when keeping up appearances wasn't worth the effort. When Miranda gave her a look of query, Emily muttered something about "...stroppy bloody Yanks." That was enough for Miranda. For now.

Andy duly appeared in the kitchen looking both confused and (Miranda found herself thinking) somewhat dashing. She somehow kept a smirk at bay.

"...I mean, it looks good," Andy was saying to Emily. "But why a three-piece suit?"

"I _did_ look for one with a skirt, but men's suits were all they had left," Emily said. "These days anything goes. And anyway, like you said, it looks… good. _Rather_ , actually."

"Shuddup," Andy muttered, her face bright red.

Her face only became more red when she glanced at Miranda, who'd decided not to hide that smirk. Actually, it was less a decision and more a habit: Miranda loved living in France, where most people didn't bother to hide attraction. Andy blushed afresh (that was also attractive), and hooked a finger under her collar. She had her hand batted gently away by Nigel, whose free hand held an emerald green necktie.

"Believe it or not, this will make it all more feminine," he said while fixing the tie. "A dash of color... There. Just like I thought. Go look in a mirror again."

"Okay," Andy said and walked out.

The three people remaining in the kitchen looked at each other. Before anyone else could say anything, Miranda abruptly introduced a topic that had nothing at all to do with one Miss Sachs—Miss _Andrea_ Sachs, which first name was not commonly given to girls in Europe but was rather commonly given to boys. Miranda hadn't quite gotten into the habit of giving Andy her name but, oddly enough, whenever she'd needed to get her attention, instead of the flattened vowels typical of American usage, Miranda used an Italian pronunciation of Andrea. As of a few minutes ago, that seemed to fit especially well.

Andy returned to the kitchen looking a little more relaxed, but she complained about her hair, saying that it looked scruffy and didn't match her neat new clothes.

"I'm thieving some precious olive oil," Nigel announced and liberated a bottle of the stuff from the pantry.

"Whadya gonna do with it?" Andy asked.

"It's not Brylcreem, but the principle is the same: a little dab'll do ya. C'mon."

"Oh for the love of Mike..." Andy grumbled.

" _You_ complained about your hair," Nigel said, pushing and shoving Andy out of the kitchen.

"I'd just love to get my hands on that no-good SS bitch who made some poor prisoner woman shear it all off. Waist-length, Nigel: that's how long it was. You got any idea how much work it is to have good-looking hair that long?"

Nigel said something that Miranda didn't catch, but whatever it was caused Andy to cuss the air a light shade of blue. Miranda straightened her face with effort, as did Emily, though probably only because Miranda had made the effort first.

"I hope she settles before we get into Paris," Emily said quietly.

"She will," Miranda said, and looked at her watch. "I'll be ready to go in ten minutes. Are you riding with us?"

"No," Emily said and glanced at a clock. "I'm going ahead with Tomas and Phillipe. And if it's just the two of you, will you drive your Lago-Spéciale?"

"Why the hell not?" Miranda said on her way out of the kitchen.

Sometime later Henri laughed at Andy's drop-jawed stare at Miranda's car, a 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C Lago-Spéciale Coupé. It was usually covered with a dust cloth, and resided in a locked garage. These days it was often neglected in favor of a more practical four-door—and ugly by comparison—Renault Celtaquatre. The Talbot had a backseat, as long as one considered a token gesture an actual backseat.

"Can I drive?" Andy blurted, walking around the gleaming black car.

"Can you?" Miranda said.

"My former boss trusted me with his Bugatti," Andy stated. "And that's a fine automobile, but this..."

Miranda's answer was to get into the passenger seat, and Andy let out a little whoop as she slipped in behind the wheel.

"Don't go too fast," Henri said, wagging a finger.

"Yes, Dad," Andy drawled. She started the car and gave the engine some gas: purr to growl to roar. "Oh baby... Bye!"

"See you tomorrow," Henri called, waving.

Miranda waved and drew her arm back inside the car and wound up the window. She glanced at Andy, whose grin seemed permanent.

"You'll hurt your face like that," Miranda said dryly.

"Probably," Andy said with a laugh. "I'm asking cos I just know that you know: what's under this hood?"

"Four-liter six-cylinder engine, triple down-draft carburetors, producing a hundred-and-forty horsepower."

"Nice. Top speed?"

"I've pushed her over a hundred miles per hour."

"Fuck..." Andy mumbled.

"Almost," Miranda said lightly, amused. "My husband was always insanely jealous of this car—When Henri refers to _le salaud?_ Him."

"Stupid, being jealous of a car... But it makes perfect sense to be envious of it. Covetous, even."

"Says the woman driving it," Miranda drawled.

"Yeah, lucky me," Andy said, grinning again.

"And I'll finally ask: why do you swear so much?" Miranda said.

"Young person in a foreign country where no-one thinks that English swears are bad," Andy said with a shrug.

"Come to think of it, I used to swear like a sailor, until my girls started to talk."

"Good reason to exercise a little restraint," Andy chortled.

"Indeed," Miranda said wryly.

A few minutes later Miranda told Andy to take a left turn, and she drove carefully and rather slowly along a narrow little road. It turned out to be more of a driveway, ending at someone's ancient farmhouse. Here they met Lucienne and Julian who looked like a regular middle-aged couple but were master forgers. Lucienne handed Andy a _Passierschein_ , a free-movement card that had supposedly been issued two days ago and was valid, in total, for seven days. It included the use of a motor vehicle within the bounds of cities, Paris included.

"I changed your surname to Sachsen," Julian said to Andy. "If someone checks this card and makes a record of the check, you will be stuck with that name and pass number, I'm afraid."

"Only until we get rid of the bastards," Andy said.

"And we will," Miranda said, looking at a _Passierschein_ of her own, and this one used her real name. That was a deliberate barb: if any Nazi official looked at this card, they'd know that it was fake, but they wouldn't be able to do anything about it. She said generally, "So they're not using the _Ausweis_ at all nowadays..."

"No, not at all," Lucienne said. "Not since they occupied all of France."

"You must tell people about that, _Renarde_ ," Julian said rather earnestly. "If they have the old _Ausweis_ and try to use it, they'll be detained and questioned by the Gestapo. Maybe they won't come out of that alive."

Miranda nodded and pocketed her card and later, on the road, she noticed that Andy had lost her grin. It went that way– lighthearted moments never lasted.

"I've not asked," Miranda said. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight in March."

"Siblings?"

"None, and just as well: we had it tough during the Depression," Andy said. And after a pause: "That feels like another life, like it wasn't mine..."

"I know what you mean," Miranda said quietly.

Andy glanced at her and looked back at the road, and her expression was full of questions. Miranda cracked open her window and lit a couple of cigarettes, giving Andy one.

"Ask," Miranda said. "Now is best, when we have more than an hour's drive and can't be overheard. Ask."

"All right," Andy said and held her cigarette up to the window: the ash was whipped away. "I can always tell: you were raised Orthodox, so—"

"You weren't?"

"No, uh-uh. We didn't know it, until we moved to Cincinnati, but the way my parents raised me actually has a name: Reform Judaism. My parents met up in this tiny little place, the only Jews, no Temple for a hundred miles, and they had to practice in a new way. They were raised Orthodox, though, so they keep kosher, keep the Sabbath—they kept a lot of things. The Reform movement is kinda bringing Judaism up to the times. You keep whatever bits of practice that you love, that you can't possibly live without, and you're not criticized for the practices that you don't hold onto."

"I need to read more," Miranda muttered.

"So I was right– raised Orthodox?" Andy asked.

"Stiflingly so," Miranda said. "I think my father purposefully tried to make me hate my own faith, my own blood... I don't want to talk about that. Instead I'll say that when I walked away I had a good deal of support from older female relatives. I went against everything my father held to be true: I got a job, I put myself through college, I made all of my own decisions, and I proved to myself that I had worth. Only one male relative supported me, Great Uncle Jerome, here in France. He invited me to come here, but then the Great War broke out... Has anyone told you what the state of my place was when I got here?"

"Yeah. That you turned it right around isn't surprising at all."

"Mmm," said Miranda, who had no use for false modesty in the face of simple facts. "Anyway, before that war ended Jerome died in his sleep and his will left everything to me. My father was incensed, or so I was told. I made sure to see my mother and her sisters, and I changed my name before I left. I wanted a new start, a clean slate, so I Anglicized Cohen to Priestly."

"Didya change your first name, too?"

"No, Miranda was my given name—actually my mother's maiden name and Uncle Jerome's last name. That side of the family were all Spanish Jews who fled the Inquisition, originally here to France, and some went to America and Canada later on... I haven't talked about any of this in... oh God, so long."

"You didn't have to," Andy said. "You don't have to."

"I know. But I wanted to—Don't ask me why. I haven't the foggiest, as Emily would say."

Miranda tossed the stub of her smoke out the window and rolled it closed, and she felt something else begin to close, to be cinched up, much as the window glass had been pushed into its seal. Ordinarily Miranda let that feeling alone, because she usually felt perfectly justified in enforcing her sense of privacy, but right now she fought off that internal process of shutting down. And it wasn't as if she needed to say very much. Miranda could leave much unsaid and Andy would understand anyway, simply for their somewhat similar backgrounds. Andy's parents had been raised Orthodox, but they'd chosen not to raise their daughter strictly so, and Miranda was almost certain that their reason had had less to do with their isolation than with how they'd been raised.

The doors stood wide open here, and Miranda decided not to shut them. She could ask, and she did, and she and Andy spent the next half-hour discussing a subject that, just yesterday, Miranda wouldn't have touched with the proverbial barge-pole.

By the time Andy got around to asking about her daughters, Miranda had relaxed enough that she didn't think about it first. She just talked about two little girls whom she missed so much that it went right beyond hurt to agony.

"But they're safe. It's all that matters," Miranda said.

"And their dad went with them?" Andy asked.

"Stephen? He's not their father, and although he accompanied them to Scotland, for which I'll always be grateful, he didn't stay with them. I've no idea where he is, and I really don't care."

"He sure pissed you off," Andy said with a wry chuckle.

"An accumulation of things," Miranda said with a shrug. "So it goes, with men... My girls' _sire_ was no different, but at least I had the good sense not to marry him. Damn-fool-me, I married Stephen. Hopefully he sorts everything out for a divorce."

"He might hold out on ya," Andy said.

"He probably won't. I doubt he's especially busy, but I'm always busy," Miranda said. "There's a war on, isn't there?"

"Just about all over the world," Andy said.

By now they were nearing Paris, and there was more traffic on the road. Both women bristled and tensed whenever they neared or passed a military transport, or a column of marching Wehrmacht soldiers. The Germans sent many of their men to France for rest-and-refit stays. Over the last couple of years the saying " _Jeder einmal in Paris_ —everyone once in Paris" had been tossed around quite seriously, and Germans officers and any enlisted men thought worthy of a special reward were bussed into Paris, mostly to see the sights.

Paris, even under the Occupation, retained its ancient mystique. In other places occupied by the Germans, various cultural monuments had been effaced or somehow Aryanized, but that hadn't happened here, and it likely never would. The Germans had occupied all of France, and also Paris, but Parisians—even those who'd welcomed the invading Germans—stubbornly spoke nothing but French, and for the average German soldier Paris was a pretty place, but rather lonely.

"The officers live it up, though," Andy said. "There's young mothers with kids who might starve, and those goddamn officers... Y'know they have standing orders issued to the enlisted fellas, saying they shouldn't even look at the hookers in Pigalle?"

"I've heard rumors, but yours is the first confirmation," Miranda said. "So the officers are ensuring that their own wants are met, without letting the rank-and-file have any fun... Interesting."

"I've learned to recognize that tone-of-voice," Andy said. "But I still don't know what it is, exactly, that you do."

"Recruit. Train. Organize," Miranda said. "That's most of what I do. For the rest, I think, I plan, and I hope it works."

"Okay," said Andy. Then: "But wait: how do you know all the stuff involved in the training and planning and... _stuff_."

"You don't sound especially intelligent when you use that word."

"Good thing I'm a lot smarter than I sound," Andy drawled. " _Nu?_ "

"I haven't been told ' _Nu_ ' in three years less than forever," Miranda chuckled.

"Y'wanna get told again?"

"Brassy, aren't you?"

"I can be. I consider it a good thing," Andy said. "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't brassy."

"Mmm," said Miranda. After a pause: "My cousin fought in the Spanish Civil War—crazy boy left America to fight in a European war... He came out of it all right, but he needed to be heard, needed to talk. I learned a lot from him. He left France just before this war broke out and I half-expected he'd come back, but no. When last I heard from him he was thinking of settling with his high school sweetheart."

"So that's where all the theory comes from."

"Yes, most of it. The rest I learned from books, or else from various SOE agents."

"And the practical stuff, like the hand-to-hand fighting?"

"Aaron taught me that, too, and things I don't bother with, like knife-throwing. It's fun to peg a knife into a board, but in a pinch it's a thoroughly stupid idea to throw away that which might save one's life."

"Yeah, no kidding," Andy chuckled. Her amusement faded and she leaned forward to get a better look at something further up the road. "I've never heard about a checkpoint out here so this is something new."

Miranda's only comment was to shake her head and glare straight ahead, and Andy said nothing else. There was a queue of vehicles and the sleek black Talbot-Lago attracted attention to the point of distraction: several vehicles ahead were being almost waved through with nominal checks. Andy nodded at a sign near the checkpoint.

"Been told about signs like that, never seen one until now."

"Why have the goddamned fools got it up here in the middle of nowhere?" Miranda said, reading some inane drivel about Jews being forbidden access to 'the Occupied Zone.' "They've occupied the entire country."

"Oh, they like reminding us, I guess... Here we go."

"They'll focus on the car."

Andy nodded while pulling up in front the lowered boom with a large "HALT! ARRÊT!" sign on it. The Wehrmacht soldiers manning the checkpoint took their time approaching the driver's window. As Miranda had said, they were ogling her car. One of them eventually strolled over and bent to look through the driver's side window, which Andy had already rolled down.

" _Reisepapiere? Laissez-passer?_ " he said: _Travel documents?_

Andy held out her hand and collected Miranda's _Passierschein_ , and handed over both of their cards. The soldier looked at them without straightening up, and handed them back.

" _Ja. Alles in Ordnung_ ," he said: _Everything's in order_. He cleared his throat and asked, "Talbot-Lago, _ja?_ "

" _Oui_ ," Andy said.

"Uhh... _Wie sagt man das auf Französisch... Est il-rapide?_ " — _How do I say in French... Is it fast?_

Andy chuckled and made a lifting gesture at the boom across the road, and Miranda smirked as the soldier hastened to raise that boom. He and his comrades stood to one side, and they cheered when Andy gave the engine enough gas to produce a throaty roar. Andy engaged first gear and Miranda braced herself back in her seat: clutch out, the tires squealed, the car took off like a rocket, and Andy punched both the clutch and the gearshift quickly up to third.

" _Auf Wiederseh'n_ , assholes!" Andy yelled.

Miranda had a good laugh at that, but Andy punched up into fourth gear, foot flat on the gas, and Miranda was soon silent as they flew past much slower vehicles and marching soldiers. Many of the soldiers raised their hands, some waved their caps, and they were cheering, but the Talbot engine's roar blocked out all other sounds. Andy was driving far too fast, but that was all right. Miranda knew all about it, knew that Andy was flaunting the power of this motorcar in the very face of her every enemy, many of whom were ironically cheering her on.

If they ended up in a smash, so be it: hopefully it would be one of those that killed them both on impact. Death wasn't anything to fear, not when Death tended to lurk almost everywhere.

Andy eased off the gas before long, but her hands were still white-knuckling the wheel.

"Speeding uses too much gas," Andy muttered.

"We have ration tickets," Miranda said.

It wasn't a statement; it was an argument, but she wouldn't push beyond that. Andy shook her head and her hands relaxed a little on the wheel.

"Hate feeling helpless," she said. " _Hate_ it."

"We're far from helpless, my dear," Miranda said. "You just need to believe that."

"Help me out?" Andy said, her voice small and suddenly ever so young.

"I can't. It's all up to you," Miranda said, her eyes on Andy's profile. "But I'll tell you this: you must accept that you cannot fix everything. If you don't, you'll lose sight of the fact that you can, indeed, fix some things."

Andy swallowed hard and nodded and Miranda hoped that she'd see the obvious angle, the one just waiting: all of it undeniable truth. Miranda watched and waited, and at length Andy's expression cleared.

"They wanted to kill me, but they didn't get that right," she said.

"Because _you_ made sure that they'd fail," Miranda said.

"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" Andy said, her expression changing, becoming harder, firmer: determined. "Think any of our saboteurs will let me go along on their next trip to blow up a railway switch?"

"Only a section of switch-track?" Miranda asked lightly.

"I agree with Emily: slowing these bastards down is a lot more effective than attacking 'em directly. Besides, we bust up the railway lines and they tend not to take revenge for that."

"They're going to start doing that even if all we do is damage railway lines," Miranda said.

"At that point it won't matter anymore," Andy said. "But for now, it matters."

Miranda nodded rather than burst Andy's bubble. The truth was that it already didn't matter, given that the German forces were suffering more and more defeats, and the Italians had surrendered: nearly a hundred-and-twenty-thousand German soldiers in Sicily had had to be evacuated, and around a hundred-and-forty-thousand had been taken prisoner-of-war. On the Eastern Front, Russia was hammering German forces, thanks in part to the resumption of the Arctic Convoys and the supplies they were delivering. To compound matters, the Allies had bombed most of the German aircraft factories to complete ruin– the unthinkable was happening: the Luftwaffe was in its death-throes. Even worse for German interests in France, it was firmly suspected that the Allies were Up To Something, and it was just as firmly suspected that France would be the focus of that Something. Knowing as much, the Occupation forces in France were becoming more frustrated and consequently more ruthless by the day. No matter what the SOE, the OSS, the few organized bodies of French _Résistance_ , or anyone remotely connected with them did, which included doing nothing at all, blood was going to be spilled, and the majority of it would be innocent.

They were damned if they did, and damned if they didn't, and Andy would soon realize that being damned for doing _something_ was a whole lot better than being damned for doing nothing.

Miranda put those thoughts away as they approached the outskirts of Paris, where more and more soldiers were seen. The old southern forts had all been turned into Wehrmacht barracks or Gestapo-run prisons, and between Bagneux and Montrouge every bit of open ground was now covered with tents. When they entered the city, Miranda gave Andy directions that took them west, to the Quartierre de Grenelle.

Unlike other parts of Paris, Grenelle often boasted crowded streets, and few Germans showed their faces, at least, not in uniform. Other parts of Paris often seemed like a ghost-town, because the few people who hadn't initially fled only ventured out to walk their children to and from school or to shop for food. In more affluent parts of the city, the wealthy Vichy supporters and German collaborators flaunted their freedoms, and the city seemed busy. These were the photos deliberately sent out to the rest of the world, and sometimes smuggled out to relatives and friends abroad. Scenes of smiling French collaborators witnessed first-hand by Parisians tended to enrage those who struggled to find a meal and who, when the black market failed them, had no choice but to feed their hungry children Jerusalem artichokes and wormy rutabagas.

Today Grenelle seemed especially busy, which meant that vendors in the famous market had probably managed to acquire enough goods to attract people from the rest of the city. But the rich wouldn't show their faces here. They didn't dare.

On a back street off the Rue de Commerce, Miranda told Andy to drive slowly, and at some point a passerby slapped the roof of the car twice.

"That's the signal. Take the next right, but keep to this speed," Miranda said.

Andy nodded and refrained from tooting the horn at the intersection in question. People made way for the car eventually and she drove slowly along what was best described as a wide alley.

"You see the three men smoking, and the boy crossing the street?" Miranda said.

"Yeah."

"Turn left as soon as you pass them."

That left turn led into what had originally been an old carriage house. Two doors were immediately closed behind the car, and when Miranda got out she heard thumping noises: the two potted fig trees that had flanked the entrance had been picked up and replaced in front of the doors.

"Welcome to my other home," Miranda told Andy.

"You need a new decorator," Andy quipped, gesturing at moldy walls and a bare light bulb.

"I'll have to speak to Nigel about that," Miranda drawled.

"Yeah, definitely," Andy said. "At the moment it's very Gestapo-chic."

"That you, of all people, can joke about that..." Miranda said with open admiration.

"Pretty much like we told Emily once, crying won't help," Andy said with a shrug and opened the trunk. "Anyhow, God's got the weirdest sense of humor, so I get to follow suit."

Miranda snorted a laugh and left her valise for Andy to carry. She climbed a short flight of stairs, and with the heel of her gloved fist she thumped a signal on a door, and it soon opened.

"Nice timing," Emily said. "We only just got here, literally just walked in. Phillipe's in the front room, keeping an eye on the street. Tomas has taken one of his walks to hear what he can."

"Is Ravitz here yet?" Miranda asked and walked into a small kitchen.

"Upstairs," Emily said. Andy walked in with the bags, and Emily chuckled. "I didn't get to see what Nigel managed with that olive oil. Very suave, I must say."

"Will you dry up already?" Andy muttered, face red.

"No," said Emily. "Shan't."

"Oh, fine... Who's Ravitz?" Andy asked.

"OSS brass, he's a regional controller," Emily said while locking and barring the door. "He likes to think that he's Miranda's boss. That's funny, because the SOE considers Miranda Major Ravitz's boss. Oh, and James is here, too."

"Holt?" Miranda asked.

"MmmHmm," said Emily.

Miranda's eyes narrowed and she worked quite hard on not swearing. She took off her gloves and coat and gave both to Emily, and Emily gestured wordlessly for Andy to do the same. Andy put their bags down and Miranda used her foot to scoot them out of the way. Andy's suitcase felt rather heavy.

"What in hell have you got in there?"

"What Jeannette told me to bring," Andy said and gave her coat to Emily. "Six bottles of the Thirty-seven chardonnay. What'd you think? A Thompson and a thousand rounds?"

"A Tommy-gun wouldn't fit in there," Emily said.

"Would if you took the stock off," Andy argued.

"It was originally designed without a stock," Miranda noted. "Meant to be fired from the hip... I don't personally recommend that, unless one really is in a trench."

"Or a sewer," Emily said.

"Or a small room," said Andy. She added: "It's possible that one day we might look back on this conversation and not believe we actually had it."

"There's a fancy word for that," Emily said.

"Dissonance," Miranda supplied.

"That's the one," Emily said, nodding. And she also reminded: "Ravitz."

"Mmm," said Miranda, and it was mostly a grouchy grunt.

She led the way through her city _maison_ , the interior of which was much more pleasantly decorated than the carriage house. Before the Occupation Miranda had spent every second weekend here. Nowadays it was used as a safehouse by the SOE, and the house's permanent residents were supposedly a young French-Swiss couple hopeful of starting a family (the truth was that they were both Belgian Jews, and while they got along famously as professionals, were their circumstances different, they'd not even talk to each other).

Emily had said that Ravitz was upstairs, and that turned out to be the first floor drawing room. When Miranda entered that room Ravitz and James Holt both got to their feet but not, Miranda noted, with any haste, and James was clearly taking his example from Ravitz. James leaned a little to his left and looked at Andy and his eyebrows arched high.

"Wow. You sure clean up... in a boyish kinda way."

"You clean up, too," Andy said, her tone flat. "In a totally-out-of-place way. We didn't get any notice-of-travel from you, James."

"I sent word for James to be here, Miz..?" Ravitz said.

"Sachs, formerly Female Prisoner Number Three-eight-five-eleven," Andy said. "Just in case you think I got it Stateside, that's the number the Gestapo gave me."

Ravitz's chin dropped a little and Miranda didn't bother hiding a smirk. She took a seat in an easy chair and seriously hoped that Ravitz would say something else that inspired a brassy response from Andy. He and James were clearly waiting for Emily and Andy to sit first, but the two women seemingly had no such intention. Emily stood with her arms folded, Andy with her hands in her trouser pockets, both of them almost shoulder-to-shoulder, and noticeably barring the door. The two men not only looked somewhat trapped, in a sense they actually were. They shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot and eventually sat down.

"James," Miranda said. "In future, you will not leave your post without first informing me. Is that understood?"

"But—" James began.

"If it's not understood, James," Miranda said in that same quiet tone. "I'll have no qualms about relieving you of your command."

"Yes, ma'am," James mumbled.

Miranda turned her eyes on Ravitz, who looked shocked and furious all at once. She cocked her head a little, daring him to speak.

"This is ridiculous," Ravitz said.

"Actually, it's SOP, otherwise known as Standard Operating Procedure," Miranda said. "We have various protocols to maintain, for good reason. Had I needed James' section to act for any reason, I'd have sent someone directly to him... only for that person to find that James had _deserted his post_. That's a grave offense. In time of war, desertion and/or dereliction of duty is permissibly punishable by summary execution. The last time someone deserted their post, four people lost their lives, and for that the person responsible also died. I pulled the trigger myself."

James went pale and gulped, and Ravitz's anger was entirely replaced by shock.

"I take my several duties very seriously, Mister Ravitz," Miranda said and lit a cigarette. She blew three smoke rings one after the other, and watched them for a while. "Now, hopefully we can agree to have one clear enemy. The easiest way to come to that agreement is for you to accept, once and for all, that any further attempts by the OSS to... boss me around, will likely result in the SOE entirely removing all OSS agents from the rough triangle of Paris-Orléans-Lyon."

"You exaggerate," Ravitz scoffed. "You think a whole lot of yourself, don't you, Miz Priestly?"

"She doesn't, really," Emily said. "We're the ones who think an awful lot of her."

"It's got a bit to do with nearly two-thousand armed men and women who will do exactly as Miranda says," Andy said.

"Shouldn't she be subordinate to you?" Ravitz said to James.

"Hey, I got myself out of that fuckin' camp, Mac," Andy snapped. "The only person I'm goddamn-well _subordinate_ to, is me. You getting that?"

Ravitz opened his mouth, but closed it fast because when he looked properly at Andy he probably saw what Miranda did: someone who knew what it was to have every freedom stripped away, someone who would rather die than allow anyone to restrict the freedom she'd taken back. Ravitz cleared his throat and shifted in his seat.

"I hear you," he said.

"Good," Andy said. "Now get on with it."

"Yes, do," Miranda said and looked at her watch. "I have to meet someone else, soon."

"Who?" Ravitz blurted.

"Never you mind," Emily said, her tone firm. "Show a leg, will you?"

"All right, all right," Ravitz said angrily. "You've had James and his men out blowing up switch-tracks, but we're not hearing anything about a dent in the enemy's numbers. What about that?"

"By a _dent_ , I take it you mean dead German soldiers," Miranda said. "We killed one accidentally last week. In reprisal, five French civilians were stood up against a wall and shot. One of them was eleven years old. And you want us to kill more German soldiers?"

"This _is_ a war, Miz Priestly," Ravitz said. "Collateral damage is an artifact of war."

"That dead soldier was _collateral damage_ ," Miranda said. "Those dead civilians were nothing of the kind. Until we're in the position to kick the Occupation right out of this country, no partisan group under my control will deliberately kill German soldiers."

"She's right, sir," James said. When Ravitz glared at him, James gulped away his nervousness, and said, "If what we do ends up with too many civilians shot, the rest of the population might turn against us, which is exactly what the Krauts are aiming for. But hell, some of the resistance groups might turn against us as well. We can't afford that, especially with Allied bombing runs killing more French civilians than Krauts. We gotta go real easy here, sir."

"What that means is, send word to all James' OSS mates," Emily said to Ravitz. "Whatever order you've given to start killing Germans needs to be countermanded immediately."

Ravitz's face reddened, and he looked from Emily to Miranda, and finally looked at James, but only briefly.

"You'd better get out there, son," Ravitz said, the words directed mostly to the oriental rug on the floor.

James got up, gave Miranda a nod, and Andy and Emily stepped aside to let him through the door. Miranda waited only until she couldn't hear James' footsteps, although she didn't feel that Ravitz deserved that consideration.

"You're a goddamned fool, Ravitz," she said softly. "Interfere again and I'll have you shipped home. Am I quite clear?"

"There's no way a civilian—a _female_ civilian can—" Ravitz almost shouted.

"One radio message will result in one telegram," Emily said calmly, while inspecting her nails. "One little telegram, Ravitz-old-boy. Within twenty-four hours, there'll be someone listening quite intently to whatever Miranda has to say about you. Miranda, did you ever ask what happened to Ravitz's predecessor?"

"He's pushing paper in a Coast Guard recruitment office in Biloxi," Miranda said.

"He's signing up Coasties? Ouch," Andy chuckled.

"I don't have to put up with this... abuse," Ravitz said and stood up.

" _Abuse?_ " Andy said, blinking. "You... You really think getting ribbed is _abuse?_ I could keep you here all day talking about what _abuse_ really is, you arrogant, soft-bred, short-ass bastard. You better beat it, before I _give_ you some _abuse_."

Ravitz stood rooted, his mouth hanging open, and Miranda supposed that no-one female had ever addressed him in that fashion. Andy took a step towards him, and Ravitz side-stepped and almost ran through the door. Emily half-turned and regarded the empty doorway for a while.

"I think that if he'd stood his ground, he'd have collected a bunch-of-fives," she said.

"A-what?" Andy asked.

"A punch," Miranda said. "Yes?"

"Uh-huh," Andy muttered. "And I think he knew I'd do it, too."

"You don't say?" Emily snarked, laughing. And to Miranda: "Shall I send a runner now?"

Miranda nodded and Emily left the room. Andy stood around for a minute or so and eventually sat where James had been sitting, and Miranda took out her cigarette case. Andy fished a Dunhill service lighter from a pocket and held a light for both of their smokes.

"Is it always like this? With the OSS people, I mean," Andy said.

"Ravitz is hardly ever here," Miranda said, shaking her head. "Recently James and his friends have all been trying to work with us in a more even, balanced way. They're more helpful and more cohesive, as opposed to standoffish and clannish. But men like Ravitz and his superiors don't like that. They're almost consumed with that ridiculous male American desire to be seen as The Best... I've come to the conclusion that most American men aren't team-players, unless everyone on the team is an American."

"Huh," said Andy. "That's something that's bugged me since I was in college, but I was never able to put it into words. Thanks."

"A little age, a little distance, a little common-sense," Miranda chuckled.

"I heard Nigel say that the other day. How long have you two known each other?"

"Not counting gaps, since we were eighteen: twenty-nine years," Miranda said, and cocked her head to one side: Emily was climbing the stairs. "She's in a hurry..."

Emily duly appeared in the doorway, and by now Miranda knew that look: there was good news.

"The Russians, the Czechs, and the Ukrainians have taken Kiev," Emily announced.

Miranda blew a smoke ring and she hoped that she looked as smug as she felt. The only pity was that she wasn't a fly on the wall in not one but several offices home to various Nazis in this city.

"No parties for the Krauts tonight," Andy said.

"No, none for Gerry," Emily said with a wicked chuckle.

"Any word on when our Soviet comrades had that victory?" Miranda asked.

"Early yesterday morning," Emily said. "Things change overnight in this war, so let's hope those Gerry Panzer divisions don't manage to rally and push our Red Army friends out again."

"I could always tell when news was bad for the Krauts," Andy said. "You just sit on a bench and watch 'em walk by with those long faces. Back in May, I knew something was up two days before news came in that the Afrikakorps had finally surrendered. Same for those dams being blown up in Germany."

"There were exceptionally long faces after they lost Kursk as well," Emily said in agreement.

"You two are making me want to go and sit on a bench somewhere and gloat," Miranda said dryly.

"Understandable, but not advisable," Emily said with a bark of laughter. Then: "It can't be long for the Occupation here now."

"The Germans need a bigger push than we can give them ourselves," Miranda said. "As far as a big push might be concerned, you know more than we do."

"What I know for sure," Emily said. "Is that things still in the planning stage sometimes never get out of the planning stage."

"Mmm," said Miranda.

To date she'd never pressed Emily for information and Miranda had no intention of starting down that path now. She'd known Emily for almost two years and had learned to trust her, and Miranda was honestly grateful that the SOE had seen fit to assign Emily permanently to operations in the area surrounding the chateau, and beyond. That had at first been a case of Emily keeping an eye on Miranda, to gauge her level of commitment and usefulness. She hadn't ever found that idea objectionable, not in light of the fact that people's lives would depend on her commitment and usefulness.

What she'd never expected was that Emily would suggest to her superiors that Miranda might be considered as a candidate agent. The SOE hadn't taken very long to come to a decision there: all of two weeks, and instead of her name simply being added to a list of agents, she was offered the option of becoming an area controller. As a certain SOE top man had once said to Miranda, "You're already one of those: people trust you, and you know whom to trust." That was true, and after making Miranda's position official (inasmuch as a clandestine organization could make anything official), the SOE ended up smirking at two-hundred-forty-odd names added to their contact and operative lists, almost overnight. Those lists had only grown longer as more and more people had arrived at the chateau to say to Miranda, "Yes, count me in, too."

Footsteps on the stairs again and Miranda turned her eyes toward the door. She smiled when Jacques 'Jack' Basson stepped into the room, and she stood to greet him. Jack kissed both of Miranda's cheeks, but his greeting to Emily was a simple though firm handshake. He turned to regard Andy, shamelessly looking her up and down.

"You made it, and you've been eating and working. I'm sorry we nearly hanged you."

"I thought you looked familiar," Andy said and held out her hand. "No hard feelings, okay?"

"You're most generous," Jack said sincerely and shook her hand. "Thank you. I'm Jack. You're Andrea—I remember."

"She's the only one who doesn't call me Andy," she said, nodding at Miranda.

"Miranda always does things _her_ way," Jack said, laughing. "You'll get used to it, Andy. Now... The Germans have lost Kiev. We must all be careful, no? The _Boche_ here will be in very bad moods for a while."

"You had something planned?" Miranda said and sat down.

"An assassination that would look like an accident," Jack said, still standing. He opened a humidor on the coffee table and took a short cigar from it. After he'd lit the half-corona, he took a step or two and leaned his shoulder against the mantel over the fireplace. Jack blew smoke and said, "But as I said, the _Boche_ will be in a bad mood. One of their officers could have a very natural heart attack at a breakfast table, in front of a lot of his friends, and those people might still decide to blame us. So we'll leave that officer's car alone."

"Wise, unfortunately," Miranda said. "Anything else?"

"We're still busy with our operations against the _milice_ in our area. Nineteen of them have just... disappeared."

"We're going to have to start doing something like that," Emily said to Miranda. "Around Orléans in particular, because the _milice_ there have been robbing people, but I don't suggest our people near Vichy do anything overt."

"Yes, leave them alone," Jack said. "The _Vichyste_ in Vichy have many _Boche_ friends. But around other cities and towns... The _milice_ think they are untouchable, but only until we 'touch' them. The _milice_ in our area are scared now. We've heard that they've been asking for _Boche_ help, but they've been refused."

"Gerry doesn't have the resources to help the _milice_ ," Emily said. "As it is, Gerry soldiers are only clashing with the _Maquis_ and other partisans if pushed to it. The Gerry policy of shooting so-called hostages is bloody cheap, both on the side of resources and time."

"The Krauts use the _milice_ and the Paris police to save money and time, too," Andy said.

"Indeed," Miranda said. She thought for a while, and said, "All right. We'll keep up with the railway sabotage, but I'll let Henri off of his leash: open season on the _milice_."

"They're going to die anyway," Jack said. "Now or later, it doesn't matter."

"It might," Andy said. "Later, when the Krauts are gone, it's likely those _milice_ assholes will get grabbed by mobs. If they get killed quick by us, instead of mauled by a mob... I think that matters."

"She's been listening to Henri, I think," Jack chuckled.

"Yeah, but it's true," Andy said. "And it really does matter, to me. I've seen the Krauts torture someone before killing him. How's it any different if a mob grabs someone and beats on him first before shooting him or stringing him from a lamppost?"

"You're right. There's no difference," Jack said. "But when that time comes, you'll have to try to understand the mob, Andy. The _Boche_ are just... bullies. We have done nothing or only a very little to deserve what they do to us, and the _milice_ and _Vichyste_ are helping the _Boche_. When the _Boche_ are gone the _milice_ cannot expect mercy, and that mob, my countrymen, all of us, we have earned a right to revenge."

"Won't fix anything," Andy said quietly.

"In one sense, it will," Miranda said. "Would you like to live next door to the commander of that concentration camp, for the rest of your life?"

Andy blinked, her expression somewhat stunned, and she eventually shook her head.

"And we don't want to live with traitors either," Jack said. "We shouldn't be expected to live with traitors. Yes, we could have them locked up, but you said it yourself, the Paris Police and all the other police, everywhere, are also fucking traitors. So do we expect the traitors to lock up themselves? Eventually, when order is brought back to this country, there'll be trials and imprisonments, but until then the people will have to police themselves. That means the _milice_ will get shot and, uhh... strung from trees and lampposts. And I won't cry over it. They've killed and helped to kill too many of my friends. We've had to put up with that for years, _amie_. Too long, and when the _Boche_ are gone, yes, the mob will make the _milice_ pay."

"I don't wanna understand any kinda mob, but I'm starting to," Andy said.

A few years ago Miranda might've felt rather bad about the fact that Andy's naïvety was being replaced with the harshest sort of sophistication. Today Miranda felt only a fleeting hint of sadness, because this was no time to coddle anyone, especially not someone who was twenty-seven years old.

The three women walked Jack down the stairs and after he'd greeted them and Phillipe, he left. As always, Miranda wondered if she'd see Jack again, and she knew that he was wondering the same about them. His brother had been among those killed in an ambush, just before Jack and his remaining _Maquisards_ had caught Andy.

These days only fools banked on living past today. In one way, that was a good thing: when all one could count on with certainty was the present moment, even the wise tended to gamble in order to win, and beyond that, it made the wise see that other gambles were worth taking.

All of that amounted to being alive in a way that people in safer places couldn't possibly grasp. As much as Miranda wanted this damn war to be over, she admitted to herself that she'd never felt as alive, as full of vitality as she had in the last few years. She had to wonder if she'd somehow be able to hang on to that feeling during peacetime.

That evening Miranda, Emily, and Andy made their way on foot, a ten-minute walk, to an old house that looked much like the other two bracketing it. As was common in this part of Paris, certain streets claimed three or four houses to a block, built cheek-by-jowl, that had been designed by the same person. This block with granite facings and sash windows had been built no later than 1850.

Emily rapped a code on the door and it opened at once. A burly man greeted them with a grin, and Miranda pressed a tip into his hand as she swept past him to a stone-walled spiral stairway. Down the equivalent of three flights, and they found themselves in a narrow corridor. At the end another doorway, and through that into a small room where another two burly men guarded a studded door. When that door was opened, its edge revealed the wood to be several inches thick.

"Looks like it belongs in a castle," Andy blurted, gesturing at the door.

"Close: it came from a fortress," Miranda said. "There are several of those doors, and they all had to be cut to fit their doorways. Thierry and his brother still complain to me about that: they wrecked several good saws in the process."

"So this is also your place?" Andy said while they descended another spiral stair.

"Yes," Emily said. "When last were we here?"

"I forget, which means: too long ago," Miranda drawled.

By now music could be heard and an occasional bark of laughter, and both kinds of sound were seeping out from behind another thick studded door. This one was sort-of guarded by six heavily armed men who were playing cards. One of them got up and opened the door for the ladies, and in the process music and laughter seemed to storm out.

"What if the Krauts hear this?" Andy said.

"Oh, that's the funny part," Emily chortled and pulled the door closed. Now she almost had to shout: "The Gerries know this place exists, because they hear it every ruddy night, but they've never been able to find it."

"There are nine different ways to get into this club," Miranda said and waved to someone. "And at each of the entrances, in each of those houses there are twenty men with guns and lots of ammunition waiting as a welcoming committee to anyone who doesn't know the right pass-code... I'd better go and mingle."

"Wait-wait-wait," Andy said. "So what was this place before you turned it into a club?"

"An enormous cistern and pump-room that supplied many of Paris' wells and fountains with water. In Eighteen-seventy, or thereabouts, it developed a crack that couldn't be repaired, so it was abandoned and blocked off, and it's not included among the current catacomb, water, and sewer schematics, or even those from fifty years ago. I found it because I'm insatiably curious and followed the corridor that led off the basement of a building I'd inherited. I made inquiries, and the ministry of water let me buy this place for a measly four-hundred francs, about twenty years ago. It took two years of work and a lot of money to get it fixed up, but within one year it had paid for itself."

"So it's kinda famous?" Andy asked.

"Not really," Emily said. "It's always been a private club."

"Membership by invitation only," Miranda said and accepted a glass of champagne off a tray. "The fifteen original members and myself have vetted every single other member... It's funny, you know. The people I could depend on before this war, are all of them the kind of people I can still depend upon. That says a lot about the goddamned Nazis: who are _their_ friends?"

"The sort of people most folks steer clear of without being told or warned," Andy said.

"Exactly," Miranda said. "And if ever there was a war worth fighting, it's this one."

Miranda left her two younger companions to their own devices, and she set off on a slow, halting journey among tables. As always, the guests tonight seemed to number people from almost every walk of life, except the very rich. The only membership criterion was that everyone had some sort of job, did some kind of work—even the musicians were club members who, by day, held a variety of jobs. Beyond that, status meant nothing; there wasn't a dress-code. The members were the kind of people who accepted without question that membership fees were tailored to suit income brackets, and the wealthier members often sponsored memberships for those less fortunate.

It was a rather socialist club in a particularly French way, namely that a French banker would always expect to discuss politics and current affairs with his motor mechanic, and here the mechanic and the banker were with their wives, all four talking about current affairs and politics over drinks. Discussion had always been the heart and soul of this club, and it wouldn't be a new thing if, tonight, a debate was launched and tables were pushed together. The members who weren't included at first would arrive to hear what was being discussed, and they'd add their voices to _le grand débat_. Miranda had been present on several occasions when the jazz musicians had downed their instruments in favor of joining one of those debates. She'd also been absent on several such occasions, and had regretted it.

If there was a debate tonight, it would be somewhat quieter than others. There were empty tables, fewer members present than there should've been. Before the Occupation members had had to call the club secretary to reserve a table, and that secretary usually ended up having to tell some members that they'd called too late. The automatic response was ordinarily, "Please put our names down for _this_ night, then." Miranda doubted that the secretary had made any advance bookings in as long as a year, and these days fellow members organized club visits among themselves, and sent someone to make block bookings in-person. No-one wise in Paris or outside of it trusted the telephone system, because the Gestapo controlled the exchanges.

Miranda fetched herself a drink stronger than champagne, and she told herself not to think too much about the blasted Gestapo, and of course, she ended up hoping that the Gestapo would indeed get blasted, right out of the country. She huffed and had a sip of her drink, and noticed that Emily was strolling in her direction. Emily's expression didn't match her pace.

"Problem?" Miranda asked.

"Yes," Emily said. "François Durand is Andy's former boss."

"Oh," said Miranda. "And where is Andrea now?"

"Hiding in the kitchen."

"But François makes regular forays into the kitchen."

"Oh bugger, I forgot..."

"Mmm," Miranda said and eased off of her high bar stool. "Get her into the office, and I'll go and ask François for a word."

"All right," Emily said and walked off. She came back and said in Miranda's ear, "Just bear it in mind that he probably thinks she's dead."

"Right," Miranda said, and downed her drink.

She knew how to tell people that their friends and relatives and acquaintances were dead: Miranda had had the misfortune of being the person in that position on far too many occasions (another of her duties that she took seriously). She'd never had to tell someone that an acquaintance or a friend of theirs actually was not dead—people didn't usually need to be told such things. It was good news, but of a potentially shocking variety, and Miranda had no idea how she might deliver it.

When she reached François' table she had to wonder if he was perhaps thinking of Andy: other people at the table were engaged in conversation while he sat silent, and his expression was dark, almost angry but sad at the same time. It was an expression that Miranda had seen on so many faces of late. Miranda touched his shoulder and he looked at her in surprise, and she gestured for him to follow her.

"Something you wish to discuss?" François asked.

Miranda nodded but said nothing else while they made their way between tables. The office was reached through a storeroom, where Miranda halted François, and she was still at something of a loss. She decided to be honest about that.

"I really don't know how to tell you this."

"But you know me," François said. "Always plainspoken, _oui?_ "

"Yes," Miranda said. "All right. Someone whom you might think is dead, is not, and she's here tonight."

"A woman? Then that must be Andy," François murmured. "Truly?"

"She's in the office," Miranda said, nodding towards the door.

François turned to the door, but turned back again.

"Tell me what happened?" he said.

"The Gestapo took her, kept her for a while, then sent her to a camp. She escaped, and then found me."

"We talked about you and the chateau and your almost-gift of all those chickens, that night she disappeared."

"Then, my friend, you're part of the reason why she's still alive," Miranda said.

"Maybe," François said, smiling. "It is good to think so, but I know her: she doesn't give up."

"I've noticed... One thing, before you see her," Miranda said. "It's best if very few people know that she's alive."

"Yes, because the damned Gestapo probably know everything about her, including the names of everyone who knew her before they made her disappear. I will not tell anyone else, not even my wife, though she loved that girl and mourns her—that's why Hélène is not here tonight. One's safety is more important than good news."

"Very true," Miranda said.

She stepped past François and opened the door to the office, and she stood to one side to let him through. She'd expected François and Andy to say something, but they stood a while silent, staring, as if neither knew how to deal with the other. Miranda tried but she couldn't put herself in either of their shoes: François so recently in mourning for Andy, and Andy face-to-face with someone who represented another life almost dead to her.

"So I found the lady with the chickens and the good wine," Andy said at length.

"Always the joker," François tutted and laughed. "Come here, let me see: far too thin!"

"I know, but I eat, I promise," Andy said and kissed François' cheeks.

"She does," Emily said. "She eats like a horse."

"But she also works hard, and you can't slow her down," Miranda said.

"I'm angry often. Work helps," Andy said with a small shrug.

"I know what you mean– I have re-papered my whole house," François said.

"The other wallpaper wasn't old."

"Papering was better than shooting the _Boche_ from my attic windows."

"You have a point there," Andy said. "François, have you seen any of my friends?"

"I see all three walking together on Sunday mornings, I think they go to eat somewhere."

"Café Sanc," Andy said, nodding. "I'm glad that hasn't changed, for two reasons: it means they're working on sticking together, and if they keep doing the same stuff, the Gestapo won't get suspicious."

"You mention that, and I'm worried for them," François said. "If they change a routine..."

"You could let them know that there's a possibility that they're being watched," Emily said.

"Good idea," Miranda said. "François, tell them that if they become suspicious of anyone, they should contact you, then you send word to me."

"I'll do that, yes," François said.

"Thanks," Andy said.

Miranda shot Emily a pointed look and they left the room together, left Andy and François to talk.

"The two of them shouldn't be seen together, lest a connection be made," Miranda said.

"I'm sure they know that," Emily said. And: "I kept trying to think of how they must feel– I couldn't imagine."

"Ditto," Miranda said.

Sometime later Miranda saw François return to his table alone, and after looking around for a while she spotted Andy leaning against a wall, looking a little lost. By now Miranda couldn't count the number of times she'd joined Andy out on the porch or in the kitchen, and they'd spent a half-hour or so in companionable silence. On all but the first such occasion, Miranda had sought that company and Andy had welcomed it, but tonight Miranda didn't know if company was what Andy wanted.

As usual these days, the club began emptying by the ridiculously early hour of nine p.m, because curfew was at ten and people still had to journey home. Miranda, Andy, and Emily left by a different way than the one they'd used earlier, and they emerged from a building just a five-minute walk from Miranda's _maison_.

Once they reached that house, Emily said goodnight and went straight upstairs, and Andy stood a while looking at the empty staircase, her expression distant.

"A nightcap?" Miranda offered.

"Upstairs?" Andy said and nodded pointedly at voices from the kitchen.

Miranda agreed and led the way up to the third floor, and to the last door at the end of a short hall. She used a key and ushered Andy into the first of her private rooms, a little sitting room. Miranda only closed the door after Andy had lit a small lamp on an end table. That neither of them thought to flip on the light-switch only occurred to Miranda later, while she sat sipping brandy. Electricity at the chateau was provided by one of two generators, a large one that powered certain pieces of machinery when necessary, and a smaller one that was only run for a while every few days, to recharge the SOE radio's batteries. Lighting a kerosene lamp and forgetting about the light-switch was rather understandable.

Andy was standing at the window, facing north, and tonight there was that distant thunder of bombing again.

"Where, do you think?" Miranda asked.

"Maybe as far away as Belgium," Andy said. "Can't see the blast flashes, anyhow... Should swap that lamp for a candle, or some Kraut will come hammer on the door. No lights allowed at all, when our boys are bombing somewhere."

Miranda's answer was to strike a match and light a candle, and she turned the little knob until the lamp's wick was withdrawn enough to snuff out its flame. She collected her glass and joined Andy at the window. The moon tonight was almost full, and its face was startlingly bright, especially hung as it was over the blacked-out city. The moon and clear skies would be a blessing and a curse to the Allied bomber crews: both the bombers and the German antiaircraft crews would have clear targets to aim at. Thinking of the destruction on the ground, the civilian casualties, Miranda shuddered.

"Cold?" Andy asked.

"No. Sometimes I envy the Christians their many prayers. They have several for people in harm's way."

"The simplest prayer is always: please, God," Andy said.

"Amen," Miranda almost whispered.

Down below on the street a dark-colored van rolled slowly past the house, most probably a Gestapo radio signal direction-finder, and Miranda tensed for a moment until she remembered that this house was no longer a sending position. That was too risky, if they wanted to keep the place as a safehouse. The radio and its operator had been moved to another location– Miranda didn't know that address and would never ask about it. Bad enough that she knew as much as she did, all of it information that could get many people killed, and there was no guarantee that she wouldn't break under torture. There was also no guarantee that she'd manage to bite on a cyanide capsule before she was grabbed, but she hoped she'd get that chance, and she hoped that her daughters would understand why she'd done it.

"Has Emily issued you a suicide capsule yet?"

"Yeah, but where did that come from?" Andy asked.

"A run of thought after that Gestapo van passed by," Miranda said. And: "Why am I always so honest with you?"

"I'm not much of a mind-reader, sorry," Andy chuckled.

"Smart-ass," Miranda drawled.

Before she thought better of it, Miranda twitched that green necktie straight and looked up to find a long-suffering look on Andy's face.

"You're straightening it just when I was thinking about taking it off," Andy muttered.

"Don't be a spoilsport," Miranda said, amused.

"You're as bad as Emily," Andy huffed.

"Am I?"

"No, _worse_."

"I think you mean _better_ than Emily," Miranda chuckled.

Andy opened her mouth to say something, but took a sip of her drink instead, and Miranda realized that Andy was very nearly uncomfortable in a way that was unpleasant, rather than simply unfamiliar.

"I didn't mean to push it past fun," Miranda said, just as soon as that penny dropped.

"It's just..." Andy shook her head and rubbed her cheek, and even in the moonlight her face showed red. "I've gotten it almost all day, and then at the club tonight, too, from women I've never met before. It's... It's confusing."

"What is? That other women would flirt with you? Or that you've found yourself responding?"

Andy blinked at Miranda, and she slowly shook her head.

"Y'don't pull your punches, do ya?" Andy mumbled.

"Your answer would tell me whether I should have a word with Emily on your behalf—which would include instructions to find you semi-formal attire other than men's suits."

Andy nearly choked on her drink, but managed to splutter a laugh instead. Miranda knew that that was one of those laughs spurred more by surprise than amusement, but there was at least a little of the latter in the mix.

"An answer to my question?"

"Both?" Andy mumbled.

"That sounded more like a question than an answer," Miranda said, but she kept her tone gentle.

"I said it's confusing," Andy said.

"I'd find it hard to believe that women have never flirted with you before today: this _is_ Paris, and even under the Germans, even under the ridiculous Vichy laws, women are still almost expected to be honest in their attractions."

"I think it's the suit," Andy said grouchily. "And I looked really different with long hair—ask François."

"Seriously? Never once?" Miranda asked. Andy shook her head, and Miranda said, "Then it was neither your fashion choices nor your hair... Something else, something... personal? Ahh... That's it."

"What?" Andy said.

"Remember how you felt when Ravitz used that word 'subordinate' today?"

"Yeah. Completely averse to him or James giving me any fuckin' orders," Andy muttered, almost through her teeth. "Orders from them would be different than orders from Henri or Alain or Jack."

"Tell me about that difference?" Miranda asked.

"Henri would tell me just to do something. Ravitz would tell me what to do in order to control me. I'll never let that happen: so help me God, no man is ever gonna control me."

"Right," Miranda said. "And that fierce independence... We've put a name to your _je ne sais quoi_. That, add the suit, and well..."

All the rest had truly been play, but this time Miranda put some honesty into it– that small but definite flicker of desire that she'd first felt that morning. Andy's breath caught, but in the same moment she scowled.

"Not fair, Miranda," she said. "I told you it's confusing, and now you're playing me like a fish on a hook?"

"I might be hurt if I didn't know you've so little experience," Miranda said quietly. "I'm not _playing you_ , not at all."

Andy's scowl was changed for a look of embarrassment, and Miranda found herself wondering if she might be able to kiss away both the expression and the emotion. She watched Andy set her now-empty glass on the windowsill, and Miranda stared at the glass for a while, remembering her thoughts earlier in the day, about the sort of gamble worth taking. On the street below, the Gestapo direction-finder van rolled by again: they'd picked up a signal and were actively hunting the radio operator.

"That's why I'm not playing," Miranda said softly, nodding at the van. "I've no interest in silly games when we have a real need for suicide capsules, and that gun under your jacket, and when a phrase like ' _There may not be a tomorrow_ ' is the absolute truth instead of a line from a mediocre melodrama."

"But I... I can't just rush into this," Andy said. "I've only been with one other person, and he and I dated for months before we even kissed—"

"Oy vey..." said Miranda.

"Ha-ha," Andy grumbled. "C'mon. I'm being serious here."

"As am I," Miranda said. "It's not smart to gamble on anything past today, this minute, right now."

"The Limeys say, 'In for a penny, in for a pound,'" Andy said and folded her arms. "If nothing's certain past tonight, then we don't have anything to lose by taking a chance that we might make it into next week or next month, and next year's not even two months away... I've never thought this way about any other woman; I got no idea what I'm getting into, but some things are the same, right? Knowing each other better is a lot more important than a roll in the hay."

"I feel like I'm back in Nineteen-twenty," Miranda almost mumbled, very nearly stunned. "It sounds as if you intend to court me."

"Not quite, not like that old-fashioned stuff," Andy said. "But this won't mean anything if we don't work on it. The only honor in this world is the honor that we put into it... Tell me I'm wrong."

Miranda shook her head No, because she was genuinely lost for words. Part of that involved thinking that no-one else could've made that statement tonight; it could only have been made by Andy Sachs. She'd been locked up and stripped of everything except her honor: of course she'd continue to cling to it; of course she'd think of Miranda's honor, and not least because Andy knew that Miranda didn't hold her honor cheap.

"Hey."

"Mmm?" Miranda snapped out of it and blinked at Andy.

"We're still going into this like there's no tomorrow," Andy said. "I've come to think it's the best way, bar none, to do anything worth doing."

"It is," Miranda said and smiled. "And you'd better go to bed, before I kiss you like there's no tomorrow."

"Right. I mean, yes," said Andy.

"Really? May I?" Miranda chuckled.

Miranda had expected Andy's reaction to be bashful, but instead she laughed.

"I walked right into that one," Andy said wryly.

"Mmm," Miranda said, with a slight nod. "I promise, I'll be better-behaved in company."

"Speaking of, what do I tell Em?" Andy asked.

"That's up to you."

Miranda took a step nearer to Andy and was pleasantly surprised to be drawn into a hug. She smoothed her hands over the shoulders of that suit jacket, and slipped them behind Andy's neck. Their hearts pounding in counterpoint made Miranda smile, and she had to laugh softly at Andy's rather goofy expression.

"Still confused, darling?" Miranda teased.

"Uh-uh," said Andy, quite firmly. After a moment: "If I don't get outa here soon..."

"If you're running away—"

"No, just listening to my gut," Andy said. She kissed Miranda's cheek. "G'night."

"Goodnight," Miranda said and let Andy go.

Miranda remained near the window for a long while. The Gestapo van didn't come back, and her intuition told her that tonight a crafty radio operator had given those Nazi swines the slip. It was only while she readied for bed that she allowed herself to think about Andy, and in that not much had changed: if Miranda had any cause to focus on whatever kind of work, she didn't allow any personal concerns to interfere.

Who knew what would come of this, herself and Andy? _Perhaps God_ , Miranda thought, and abruptly frowned, remembering that she'd stopped believing in God some years ago (and it was likely that she hadn't believed in Him to start).

The aphorism held: "There are no atheists in foxholes," and Miranda grudgingly admitted that she could call herself proof that there might be no such thing as a proper atheist. Of late she'd had to keep from joining Andy's quiet Sabbath prayers, and those prayers had themselves helped to chase some of the atheist out of Miranda's system. If she'd stumbled over that realization yesterday, Miranda might've borne Andy a tiny but very real grudge, but tonight Andy stood forgiven though never accused.

Miranda recognized that for what it was: fondness, and that fondness for Andy might interfere in matters of discipline. Even if Andy had chosen not to tell Emily anything, Miranda would be having a word with Emily, and later, Henri. If Andy screwed up in any way, Miranda would step back without comment and let the two of them deal with Ms. Sachs. Yet another duty that Miranda would take very seriously indeed.

~ ~ ~

The next morning after breakfast Andy was the passenger while Miranda drove. The Talbot-Lago's gear shift was on the steering column, and the front seats were so closely set that they were almost a bench. Andy turned sideways in her seat, tucking up a leg, and her knee pressed against the outside of Miranda's thigh. Just for that Andy received a smile—well, almost: it was more a smirk. Andy laughed quietly.

"I think that's your best expression."

"Oh?" Miranda said.

"Yeah, when you look all smug," Andy said, and after a pause: "Emily wasn't even a little surprised. She said it makes sense... That's how I feel about it; it's what I was thinking when I first woke up."

"When I woke up, I wished you were in my bed," Miranda said plainly.

Other people got butterflies, but something the size of a hawk swooped in Andy's belly, and she nibbled her lip. Miranda glanced at her and smirked again.

"You said you'd behave," Andy giggled.

"I said I'll be boringly well-behaved in company," Miranda said. "When we're alone? Forget it."

"Oh boy," said Andy.

"No, no more boys," Miranda said. "We might one day go our separate ways, and you might take up with a man, but I'm through with them... I overheard you telling Jeannette why you and your boyfriend parted ways. To me it sounded like he'd refused to grow up."

"Kinda," Andy said. "But he's not here to defend himself, and beating dead horses has never been my gig... I got no idea what he might think about you."

"You needn't tell him. After all, it's not exactly the custom to announce relationships like ours."

"Oh," Andy mumbled. "Odd..."

"Mmm?"

"Just... I just told Emily, like it was nothing, no big deal," Andy said. "I guess I better start exercising a little caution."

"While out and about, yes," Miranda said. "At home, caution can go to hell... You won't be the first woman who's lived with me. There was another, between Marcel and Stephen."

"Why'd you two split up?"

"We didn't, really. It was never a permanent arrangement, more one slated to end when she went back to America. We were each something of a convenience to the other."

"I'd have worried about getting attached and then getting a broken heart," Andy admitted.

"I try to live without regrets, but I don't stop myself from living," Miranda said. "I'd rather have my heart broken as a result of having loved and lost, as the saying goes, than to have it broken in other ways. When Alice left, my heart didn't break, but I missed her. I still miss her every now and then. That isn't a bad thing: it proves I'm human."

"You've been told you're not?" Andy said.

"A few times. I very much doubt that Ravitz thinks of me as human."

"Right... I once heard James call you the Dragon-lady."

"It was Christian who first called me that," Miranda chuckled. "Christian Thompson... If you meet him, stay on your toes: he makes passes at anyone female."

"He tries that on with me, and I'll tell him straight that I'm your girl," Andy stated.

"I hope I'm a witness to that," Miranda said lightly.

"What've I gotten myself into..." Andy groaned and laughed.

Miranda's response was about the naughtiest chortle Andy had ever heard in her life. She decided that what she might've gotten into was something fun. And why the hell not? Fun, while this damn war raged on, was the rarest of commodities. The only good things that would come out of this conflict were those that people had found and clung to, or those good things that they'd clung to from the start. Andy could think of a list of those: honor and loyalty, and courage, kindness, and love.

"Suddenly so serious," Miranda said quietly.

Andy described her run of thought and she and Miranda discussed, in all seriousness, the way in which war brought out the best and also the worst in people. The worst seemed to be most prevalent, but when the best was glimpsed it was like a diamond glinting brightly in a heap of dead-black coal. The war was still raging on, and yet there were already countless stories of heroism and sacrifice, sometimes on the part of the enemy, like the forty-something-year-old German deserter who'd surrendered to the _Maquis_ , and had promptly joined them because, he'd said, he felt it right to make war on the people who'd commanded him to make war on helpless civilians. That deserter wasn't alone. By now there were scores, if not a hundred-or-so German deserters among the _Maquis_ hiding away in the woods and the mountains, all waiting to be told to act.

"If any of those deserters are caught they'll be handed straight to the Gestapo," Miranda said. "If they survive that, some are sent to POW camps, specifically those where there are Russian soldiers, and it's announced to the POWs that they're being made a _gift_ of a German deserter."

Andy muttered cusses and had to wonder at the level of courage it took, as a German soldier knowing about that possibility, to desert. That in turn led her to think that, in many ways, the Nazis were employing the same psychological terror tactics against their own men that they were employing against their enemies.

Andy had been told that the Russians were worse; she'd been told that Hitler was nuts, but that Stalin was perfectly sane and that the policies that he'd implemented to keep Russian soldiers in line were worse for Stalin's sanity. She could see that distinction, and yet she knew that the average Russian soldier and citizen had been born into dictatorial communism, whereas the average German soldier and their noncombatant relatives had somehow become infected with Hitler's insanity.

"It makes no sense," Andy said.

"It does, if one looks at Germany before this war," Miranda said. "After the Great War, Germany was heaped with so much war-debt that the entire country felt it like being poleaxed, and on top of that they were hit with the Great Depression. Out of that bewilderment rose a few angry people, one of them Adolf Hitler, and I've been told that people used to pitch up to hear him talk just because he spoke so well. And he used that, and Germany's building anger against that war-debt: he had a ready-made platform from which to launch his ideology. He told Germans that they'd been wronged—he even coined a word for that: _Kriegsschuldlüge_ , the War Guilt Lie sucked out of the thumbs of the British and in particular Jews within Britain, and he told the German people that they had a right to exact revenge. Most of the German soldiers marching off to fight firmly believe in that right; most of the people at home in Germany believe in it just as firmly. And an urge towards revenge... One never feels it as a small, fleeting emotion. It's always a flood, all-consuming, especially when it's backed by perceived righteous indignation."

"I gotta work hard, every damn day, to fight off that feeling," Andy admitted in a murmur.

"You and I both, darling; you and I both," Miranda said quietly.

Andy resented the fact that the little thrill she got from Miranda's use of an endearment was mixed with fear and anger and worry. Andy also realized that that resentment was something she'd have to learn to welcome. If she began to feel used to those mixed feelings instead of resenting them, it would mean that she'd lost the urge to fight against the injustices of this war. Complacency was the worst of all enemies, and the most insidious. To become complacent was also to say, "Well, there's nothing I can do."

Those thoughts spurred another into existence, and Andy decided to be honest.

"Can we afford this distraction?"

"It's not a distraction," Miranda stated. "This—you and me. This is another reason to fight even harder, even more fiercely. The fact that you asked that question tells me that you're not likely to start acting like a lovesick schoolgirl, and rest assured that the term 'lovesick schoolgirl' has never been applied to me, even when I was a schoolgirl."

"That... Yeah, I can't imagine that it woulda been," Andy drawled. "Where did you grow up?"

"New York City," Miranda said. " _Redstu Yidish?_ " — _Do you speak Yiddish?_

" _Bissela_ ," Andy chuckled. "Only a little. But I'll be learning more, will I?"

"Maybe," Miranda said. "My father was progressive in only one sense: he ensured that English was the first language spoken by my brothers and I. Father was entirely against the idea of anyone Jewish insulating themselves via language. The language of America is English, and we weren't allowed to speak Yiddish at the dinner table until my youngest brother was five, and I was eleven. By then even the youngest of us understood that English should always come first."

"So you were the eldest?"

"Unfortunately," Miranda said. "I'm damned sure that if I'd been the second-eldest, my father would've seemed a kinder man... Where did you pick up French and German at that level of fluency?"

"My parents are both second-generation German Jews," Andy said. "So after English, German came pretty naturally—"

"But no Yiddish?"

"No, for much the same reason your father had," Andy said. "My father's grandparents insisted on English, and my mother's parents were the ones to insist on that. So on Dad's side there's a full generation gap, when it comes to Yiddish. My mom speaks it fluently, but my dad hardly at all. German's always been useful in business, so they both kept that and handed it on to me."

"And French?" Miranda asked.

"We lived in a neighborhood where there were a lot of French speakers, most of them immigrants or first generation, so I got my start with school friends. French was offered at my high school, and then I took classes again in college. But at college I got my first dip into Parisian French, and I had to work a lot harder on getting that right than I did in high school... Paid off: every job I got here came from my fluency in French."

"Even the country folk here take pride in their language," Miranda said. "But not quite to the extent taken by Parisians."

"They're sometimes far too sticky about it," Andy said. "But I'm the foreigner, so I'll only say as much to other foreigners... Though we can't really call you a foreigner anymore."

"Technically I'm not: I renounced my American citizenship officially after my girls were born, when I came back here."

"So you left?"

"Just four days after a French doctor gave me a stricken look and informed me that he could hear _two_ heartbeats: twins, and I was only a couple of months away from my thirty-fifth birthday. Marcel and I took ship to New York, and hunted up a specialist gynecologist. I spent the last seven weeks of that pregnancy in hospital. And you might imagine that I was an awful patient, but I really was not."

"I understand that," Andy said. "So your girls were born in the States, and they're American citizens?"

"Yes, and just as well... I remember the day I took them to the American consulate in Paris, and someone there tried to _give_ me an American passport, despite the fact that I'd renounced my citizenship, because they don't usually issue passports to children under ten. My girls weren't quite eight at the time... That couldn't have been more than a week before the Battle of France began. Anyway, they issued those passports to my girls, too young for it or not."

"I don't think they woulda refused," Andy said.

"Didn't someone from the consulate try to get you and your friends to leave?" Miranda asked.

"No, they focused on the tourists and wealthy American residents in the cities. All of us had jobs and we were renting little _pensions_ , and most of the time the owners of those places don't register leases. When we went to the consulate, we were told that we'd been added to the list of people to get out, but that list was real long, and a better bet was to try to get out under our own steam. We tried that, and as you know, it didn't work."

"And I'm torn, on that point," Miranda said, frowning. "A selfish little part of me is glad that you're here, and the rest of me is very much aware of the fact that you've suffered for it."

"I coulda suffered worse," Andy said. "I mean, I whacked Lieutenant Jodl over the head and then stabbed him before he managed anything—Oh. You'd been wanting to ask about that."

Miranda nodded, her expression relieved and also conflicted, and Andy gave her arm a pat.

"From now on, you just ask, okay?"

"I've been afraid of asking, even before yesterday evening," Miranda said quietly, almost a whisper. "Afraid of how angry I might've become."

"I wouldn't be me, like I am now, if he'd managed to rape me," Andy said. "It's why I fought... And I didn't think I'd make it. I thought he might overpower me, but I got him a good shot with that fuckin' chamber pot, I tell ya."

"A heavy one?" Miranda chortled.

"Good Soufflenheim stoneware, you'd have to drop it on an anvil from three storeys up to break it. Shows how hard that asshole's head was: he just dropped to his knees, and then... I didn't even think, y'know? The dagger was right there on his belt, and next thing I knew it was in my hand... He tried to stand up, and I kicked him, and he fell and rolled on his back... I don't really remember stabbing him, and I dunno how long I sat there, on top of him, both hands still gripping the dagger handle, staring at his dead face... Then all I could think was _escape, run, go!_ And I did, I made it... Still hard to believe sometimes."

"Emily's told me that she sometimes wakes you up, to get you out of bad dreams," Miranda said.

"She does, but I don't dream about Jodl," Andy said. "I have nightmares about what the fuckin' Gestapo might do to my friends in Paris, and anyone I've met since: Emily, Nigel, Henri, you. Nightmares about being half-drowned in the dark, about getting shocked to death on electric fences—that was the easiest way to commit suicide, at Natzweiler, and lots of people did it while I was there, five on one day, once: real easy, cos even touching that fence by accident was enough for it to kinda grab ya and fry ya. But sometimes the guards would get it in their heads to have some _fun_ , and they'd throw prisoners on the fences. Those are the worst nightmares, like I'm at the movies and the goddamn projector's gotten stuck, playing bits of bad memories over and over... And then Em wakes me up. If I stay awake a while, the dreams don't come back, but I don't always remember to stay awake."

"I'll remember," Miranda said.

"The idea of waking people up pisses me off," Andy muttered.

"It's hardly your fault," Miranda said. "I really doubt you want to have nightmares, and you'd not have them at all, if not for those Nazi bastards."

"Yeah, but still," Andy grumbled.

"Grouch, grouch, grouch."

"I got a right to be grouchy."

" _Right_ ," Miranda said pointedly. "And I think you should take the view that if you have nightmares and that wakes someone up, they have a right to care instead of being put out."

"Didn't think of it that way," Andy mumbled and felt a little silly.

"You can't be expected to think of everything," Miranda said. "And really, no-one's expecting that at all... Well, except for you."

"Did I just get a lecture?" Andy chuckled.

Miranda held her finger and thumb less than an inch apart: a small lecture. She put her hand back on the steering wheel and shot Andy a smile.

"I promise not to do that too often."

"If you think I need it," Andy said with a shrug. And with a grin: "After all, you're older and wiser."

"This I get? With this I have to put up?"

"Now I'm absolutely convinced you're New York Jewish."

"Not even my girls have heard me imitate my poor mother," Miranda chuckled.

"Do they know they're Jewish?" Andy asked.

Miranda shook her head and Andy's gut told her to leave that subject be, at least for now. It might be something they'd have to tackle head-on in future, or that future might not be theirs to discuss. All Andy knew with certainty was that she wanted this relationship for the same reason that Miranda did: only a fool would turn their back on something good in the midst of everything bad.

They soon had to pass through the middle-of-nowhere checkpoint they'd encountered yesterday. Less than a mile beyond that point Miranda took a rather long detour off the route that had brought them to Paris. They passed a signpost that said that the town of Melun Villaroche was twelve kilometers away, and Andy frowned. If they were really heading for Melun, they were on their way to visit a rather large contingent of the Luftwaffe, based at the aerodrome there.

"Where are we going?"

"To meet Emily."

"What the _fuck_ is she doing in Melun?" Andy squawked.

"Calm down," Miranda said very calmly. Andy glared at her, and Miranda laughed, saying, "This is why we didn't tell you. That suit, add a glare? My, my. I'm rather tempted to stop the car. Don't glare at Emily, or she'll be forced to say something that'll likely make you blush."

"You _like_ it when she flirts with me? Oh, that's just swell," Andy snarked. "I'm in so much trouble..."

"Get used to it, beautiful," Miranda chuckled. "And what's wrong with my liking it that you're admired?"

"Ugh, never mind..." said Andy. "So what's in Melun, besides high numbers of Nazi assholes?"

"We won't be entering Melun itself; we'll be stopping just outside of it. Emily wants to check on something... Is your pistol loaded?"

"Always, and I got two extra magazines," Andy said. "So I might need it?"

"Perhaps."

"Okay."

Miranda glanced at Andy, then back at the road, and she used the gears to slow down, and eventually pulled off the road. Miranda left the engine running, turned in her seat, and looked Andy in the eye for a long, silent minute.

"You really are as cold as ice," Miranda said.

"No, I'm just pretty good at hiding the fact that I'm shit-scared," Andy said. She turned a hand palm-up and held it out to Miranda. "But I can never hide my sweaty palms."

Miranda took Andy's hand between both of hers and squeezed it, and she leaned in and pressed her lips to Andy's gently. Andy's heart thumped like a mad thing, and the fear she felt was chased for a moment.

"For luck, and because I wanted to," Miranda said softly. "And I doubt we'll have trouble, but it never does to go into anything unprepared."

Andy nodded, and Miranda cheekily stole another kiss, even swifter than the last. Andy wanted to grumble about that, but that fear crept in again, reminding her that they had some sort of possibly-dangerous task ahead. She said nothing, and Miranda got the car moving again.

After seven kilometers or so, Miranda turned off the main road and headed south along a secondary road. Most secondary roads in France were hardpack gravel that only rarely saw a steamroller and a grader, and as such they were usually more of a linear collection of ruts and potholes than a road. But this one was tarmac, almost new.

"Someone paid a lot of money for this road," Andy said.

"There's a fair amount of irony attached to this blacktop," Miranda said. "It was laid down for a Luftwaffe colonel who liked riding a motorcycle at stupid speeds, but he never got so much as a trial run on this surface because he was transferred. So, essentially, a lot of money was spent for nothing, but the prefect of Melun Villaroche sent him a thank you note for the lovely road-surface."

"Bet he let loose a long string of German cusses," Andy chortled.

"Mmm, but this road also represents a problem particular to the German war-machine: extravagant spending. I've been told about parties in Paris where, certainly, many of the items on offer might've been stolen, but for the rest an exorbitant amount of money was spent. It's not the officers who pay for those parties; they're billed to the Reich, and the Reich pays up with the attitude of, 'Well, we're conquering the world, aren't we?'"

"But they're getting beaten."

"Indeed, but it seems that the people in charge of doling out cash have been told to ignore that."

"I think they can still afford it, afford more."

"Explain?" Miranda said.

"What's cheaper than slave labor, Miranda?" Andy said. "I read somewhere once that labor is more than two-thirds the price of any Allied warplane. But by now there's hundreds of thousands of Jews and POWs doing work for _free_ , and if Germany's not paying for labor, they've still got billions of Reichsmark to swim in and spend on whatever the fuck they want."

"Dear God," Miranda murmured.

"I'm good with figures," Andy said. "While I was ironing shirts I worked out that the prisoners at Natzweiler alone were doing about two-hundred-twenty-five-thousand Reichsmark worth of labor for nothing, per _week_. That's nearly a million Reichsmark saved per month. And there are more camps, bigger ones, all crammed full of free slave labor. They might run outa raw materials to produce stuff, but like I said, the fuckin' Nazis are swimming in cash and they're not gonna run out of that anytime soon."

Miranda's only response was to narrow her eyes at the road ahead, that almost-shiny new, expensive road.

"This war is not just one thing," Andy said quietly. "The fighting fronts aren't just drawn on a map, are they?"

"No. I've just glimpsed a new front," Miranda said. "How many people were worked to death to pay for this road? Anything Germany builds, anything they construct anywhere in Europe, was bought and paid for with death... For those of us who realize as much, that's a front called Guilt, but we're the ones who feel it."

Andy nodded, rather than say anything. Most of the time she could stave off tears, and she tried hard because crying didn't fix anything, but she hadn't wanted in a long while to cry as much as she did now. She got the better of those tears, somehow, and when she looked at Miranda's profile Andy recognized an expression of concentration peculiar to do- _not_ -cry. They'd have to cry, at some stage, but not today, not now.

Miranda eventually steered the car off of the tarmac and onto dirt that wasn't much more than a track. It led around the side of a hill, but traced a line parallel to the road, away from Melun. At the top of the hill, Miranda parked the car in a thick stand of trees, next to Phillipe's old Citroën.

Andy and Miranda got out of the car and walked further into the trees and were soon met by Emily, who gestured for them to stand still.

"This is the last time we can use this lookout," Emily said. "Phillipe and Tomas are repositioning some mines, with the help of Juno."

"Who's Juno?" Andy said.

"Arthur's mine-sniffing dog," Emily said.

"Oh. But why the hell did we come here in daylight?"

"To lure Gerry back here," Emily said.

"And then use their countermeasures against them," Miranda said. "Beyond officially-ordered minefields, they're lazy about landmines. Their sappers just lay them and the only schematic they draw is a rough outline of where the mines are."

"So we move a few outside that outline," Emily said. "To date, no landmine 'accident' has resulted in hostages being shot. Even if we get just one Gerry this way, it's worth it, for the morale knock to the rest."

"Yeah, I see that," Andy said. "And would they clear the mines out after that?"

"Sometimes," Miranda said. "But then they replace them with tripwire-rigged grenades. They're more careful about plotting the positions of those."

"So we can't fiddle with them," Emily said. "But when we kick Gerry out, we know to send people here to clear the place of mines and grenades. Before that, we warn people not to come to places like this. The locals already know to stay away."

Andy nodded and looked past Emily at a short man leading a squat little dog on a leash. The dog was what Andy's dad would've called a 'sidewalk special,' a mutt of varied ancestry, and Andy bent and petted him even before greeting Arthur, whom she'd never met before. When she looked up, Arthur was grinning from ear to ear.

"A woman after my own heart," Arthur said.

"And after mine," Miranda said, smirking. "We have such good taste, you and I."

" _Again?_ " Arthur said, laughing. "At least it doesn't happen every week, only every few years, _amie_."

"Alice, or someone else?" Andy asked Miranda.

"Not 'or,'" Arthur drawled. " _And_. Alice _and_ someone else, and you, too, makes _three_ times me and Miranda liked very much the same girl. But one time the girl liked me more than Miranda."

"I'm... not gonna comment on that," said Andy.

"Discretion being the decidedly safer part of valor, neither am I," Emily said.

"So young and yet so wise," Arthur chortled.

"Indeed," Miranda said.

Andy glanced at Emily and looked away rather quickly, because the safer part of valor included not laughing their heads off. Andy had an idea that Emily was chewing the inside of her cheek to help keep a straight face; likewise, Andy's teeth were punishing the tip of her tongue.

"The men are all dressed for the country, and my clothes don't match," Emily said. "That'll be cause for a lot of questions, if we're stopped. So I'll be riding with you ladies, all right?"

Miranda nodded and Emily went off to transfer her bag to the Talbot-Lago's trunk. Tomas and Phillipe arrived soon, one of them bearing a small entrenching shovel, and they walked over to the cars. Tomas fixed the shovel to the underside of the Citroën's hood, over the engine, where any Wehrmacht soldier at a checkpoint or roadblock wouldn't bother to look. So many weapons had been smuggled all over this country that way. On the whole, and as with the German sappers who didn't adequately map the mines they laid, the soldiers at checkpoints were rather lazy and that was mostly as a result, by now, of boredom.

"And it's very important to properly assess that level of boredom," Emily said when they were on the road. She was lounging sideways on the backseat. "Tomas' walks in Paris were meant to be focused on that, but the Red Army taking Kiev gave Gerry something else to talk about."

"So where does Tomas put the current German morale?" Miranda asked.

"Among the regular soldiers, lowish, but not too bad," Emily said. "The officers are angry, certainly more angry than their men... Paris is a problem. The men stationed there or nearby aren't as bored as Gerry-in-the-country. The brothels inside the city serve the officers; the ones on the fringes of Paris serve the regulars, and there are four times as many fringe brothels as there are central."

"If only we could meddle with that..." Miranda said.

"The only thing I can think of is to fake a scare of the clap," Emily drawled.

"But the Krauts have doctors that manage the health of all the hookers," Andy said.

"They _what?_ " Emily mumbled.

"For all the central brothels. I'm not joking... I didn't know about the fringe ones," Andy said.

"I wager those doctors make even more sure of the health of the women in those places," Miranda said.

"Absolutely," Emily said. "Average forty men of the file to every officer... Yes, the doctors work a bloody sight harder for the fringe brothels."

"Certainly explains why we hardly ever hear of German problems with the clap," Miranda said.

"They think of _everything_ ," Andy said, scowling. "It's kinda not-fair, in the extreme."

"That's the way they've fought the whole ruddy war, isn't it?" Emily grumbled. "Not cricket, all the bloody way to Tipperary."

"Let's hope they don't get there, or we're done-for," Miranda said and huffed in annoyance.

"No, come on, now," Emily chuckled. "Gerry in _Ireland?_ That'd be the end of Gerry's war, for sure... Although there's a possibility that the Irish would just about wipe Gerry out, then tell them to take a break so they can all start fighting again later. As the song goes, ' _All their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad_.' A great pity we can't get more Irish in this war. Everything I've heard about Irish volunteers has been good, and they pick up the morale of all their mates."

"I've heard that, too, from a Kraut," Andy said. "Few guards were talking about which group of Allied soldiers they worried about most. One fella listed the Irish first, then the Gurkha, then the Scots. You think about it: the Irish are neutral. We Allies are conscripting and drafting, but the Irish volunteer, and they really believe in what they're fighting for. No wonder the Krauts fear them."

"Indeed," Miranda said. "And then we have the damned Swiss, so proud of their neutrality, and they lie through their teeth about the Swiss fighting for the Germans."

"I've been told by Irish volunteers that their government will lie about them, too," Emily said.

"If I remember a political discussion right, they kinda have to deny their volunteers," Andy said. "If they admit to them, then their neutrality can be questioned. The only volunteers they can acknowledge are noncombatants, like medical personnel."

"I honestly don't understand any country remaining neutral in this war," Miranda said. "Even some Latin American countries are talking about declaring war on Germany."

"I think only the Brazilians and the Mexicans are serious about that," Emily said. "There's a lot of support for the Soviets in South America, but those are poor countries that just can't afford to do more than offer their labor to help the war effort. Sending men to fight is out of the question. There's also support over there for Gerry and Japan. The Yanks are spying all over and their reports mostly involve being disheartened by the amount of support for the Axis lot."

"So the insanity hopped over the Atlantic?" Andy mumbled.

"The countries they're talking about are ruled by dictators who all admire Hitler," Emily said, shaking her head. "In other words, as in Italy, the fascist madness was already there, and it's the sort that matches what we've seen from Germany."

"We'd better change this subject, cos I'm getting a headache," Andy muttered.

"I'm getting hungry..." Miranda said.

"You're always hungry," Andy said.

"I blame it on the scarcity of fresh meat."

"Rumor has it," Emily said. "Miranda used to have a near- _bleu_ steak for lunch every day."

"It's not a rumor, it's the truth," Miranda said.

" _Bleu_ is too close to _meu_ for me," Andy drawled, punning on the French for 'moo.' "I like my steak cooked just dead enough that there's no chance of resurrection... And now I'm hungry, too."

"As am I, but best we hang on till we get back to the chateau," Emily said. "By now Jeannette's got the day's bread baked, and she said yesterday that there are two types of cheese ready to eat."

Miranda added a little pressure to the gas pedal, and a little speed to the car, and Emily and Andy giggled and didn't tell her to slow down.

Their arrival back at the chateau involved a warm welcome from Nigel and Henri and Jeannette. Alain soon arrived to add his voice and kisses to both cheeks. There was relief in all their expressions, and to Andy it was a little painful.

And she thought: _It shouldn't be like this; we shouldn't have to worry about everyone being killed or captured; it's not right: it has to stop_.

Her own capture and experiences of capture and captivity had hardened Andy's resolve somewhat, but that late morning in early winter—a beautiful blue-skied day contrasted so starkly with her friends' relief at seeing her again—brought the precise moment when Andy decided that even if her life was the price, she was going to be a part of the effort to end that war.

That feeling was only cemented that night, just before she set out on foot to join a sabotage crew. There was no guarantee that Andy would return. She knew it, and so did Miranda. They didn't say goodbye, and when Andy jogged off with a suppressed Sten slung from a shoulder, she didn't look back: that was wrong and had to end, too.

Even the suppressed submachine-gun was all wrong, wrong, wrong. It was very quiet and meant for one purpose: to surreptitiously kill German soldiers, preferably by shooting them from behind. Andy knew that she might have to do that tonight, if a German posed a risk to her sabotage crew. The five of them had picked her, and that was the only good thing about tonight. One of them was Henri's cousin Pierre.

"We have to ride in a truck, for a while. We go across the hills," he whispered.

" _In_ the truck?" Andy asked.

" _Oui_ ," another man said softly. "There's an old road."

"We think the _Boche_ don't know about it," Pierre said.

"It's a hay-road," the other man said. "The way the old wagons went to fetch hay from all the wild fields. People used to cut hay everywhere, anywhere, and then they collected it, little by little."

"There's the truck," a man said. He pointed to the full moon in a clear sky, and added, "We waited until tonight, so we can drive with no lights."

The driver greeted them all with a grin and a wave, and they climbed aboard. That turned out to be the bumpiest ride of Andy's life, and on a couple of occasions they had to get off of their ride and push it out of a ditch or furrow. At least it wasn't a very big truck. It was eventually parked in a stand of trees, and the driver wished them good luck.

Andy and her comrades spread out and jogged through knee-high grass toward the black slash that marked the railway line. As she'd been taught, Andy kept glancing to her left, to Pierre who was the commander tonight. She also kept looking ahead, toward the tracks, and eventually she spotted a group of six German soldiers walking in a sloppy huddle.

Andy hissed and dropped into the grass, and her five friends stopped dead and did the same. Pierre leaned up onto an elbow and whispered orders to the man nearest him. The orders were passed down the line, and Andy and the man next to her began to crawl forward, following the soldiers. Andy and her friend were the backup, the two meant to open fire if that was needed to help their friends escape.

"That bush, yes?" said her pal, Michel.

" _Oui_ ," Andy said.

When they reached the bush in question, rather a large laurel that had been coppiced, they knelt up in its shadow. They easily found gaps in the foliage and could keep the shuffling soldiers in sight. Andy waved a signal, and she saw Pierre and his three men get up and run.

"Where's our watchman?" Andy asked.

"I saw his flash, over there," Michel said. "With us watching, and with that man on the other side of the tracks, we can't make a mistake."

"I think so, too," Andy said, her eyes glued to the soldiers. "How are our fellas doing?"

"I got the signal from Pierre: we go... _now_."

Andy took one last look at the soldiers and bolted from the cover of the bush. She and Michel easily caught up with Pierre, who was spooling fuse wire as he jogged away from the tracks. The three of them soon reached a clump of bushes, and Andy was the one who attached the fuse wire to the detonator. She offered the device to Pierre, but he shook his head and gave her a little shove.

"Ask our watchman the question," Andy said.

One of the men used a flashlight: one flash, a beat, two flashes. From the other side of the tracks came a single flash: all clear. Andy pulled up the detonator handle, and twisted it back into the body of the detonator.

"Thousand-and-one-thousand-and—"

Andy's count was cut off by the barking roar of TNT, and its yellow-orange flash showed a length of track cartwheeling away, and even while the roar was still in the air, Andy yanked the used fuse free of the detonator.

"Fuck, that felt good," Andy chuckled.

Pierre laughed and smacked a kiss on Andy's cheek, and his comrades whacked her on the back.

"Let's go, huh?" Michel said.

They hightailed it back to the truck, and the driver made sure to drive away slowly. Now was the worst time, when most of the sabotage teams were likely to face trouble. Even though the Germans probably didn't know about this old cart-track, the driver and his passengers were all on the defensive. At one point they had to cross a road, and Pierre and Andy went ahead and hid near the road, waiting, but they heard no vehicles. They waved the truck across and ran after it, rather than risk a pause for them to climb in the bed. Once the truck had crested a small rise, out of sight of the road, it stopped, and they climbed in.

"She's like ice, this one," one of the men said to Pierre.

"Yes, good and calm. You'll come with us again, Andy?"

"You bet," Andy said, nodding.

And she knew it wouldn't be smart to mention that her 'iciness' was no more than a high level of self-control.

She and her friends parted ways about a mile from the chateau, and Andy walked alone in the moonlight, careful of her footing, but otherwise carefree. She'd _done something_ , one little thing to slow down the German war-machine, and that was a start. She had no wish to harm anyone, and hoped that she'd never have to do so again, but she'd do that, too, if she had to. Andy knew it in her gut, a strange, almost sickening knowledge free of any doubt. But it wouldn't happen tonight. She saw again, in her mind's eye, that yellow-orange explosion and the spinning piece of railway track: as she'd said, that had felt good.

" _Boom!_ " Andy said to herself and cackled. "Some Kraut officer's stolen champagne is gonna be delayed..."

" _Wer spricht da drüben?_ " someone else said: _Who's speaking over there?_

Andy froze and dropped to a knee, and her hands worked automatically: she silently cocked the Sten, and pushed the fire selector to Automatic. She scanned slowly left and right, as she'd been taught, and spotted three men in the shadows thrown by some poplar trees. They were less than twenty meters away, and they hadn't spotted her because she'd been walking through even deeper shadows.

" _Eine Frau? Britischer?_ " one of the soldiers said: _A British woman?_

" _Nein. Amerikaner_... _Fick!_ "

Andy didn't ask questions. No-one else in her position would have. She pulled the trigger in controlled bursts, and the Sten spat quiet death at the three German soldiers. One of them cried out, but not loudly, and all three went down in jerking heaps. Andy changed out the magazine and stood up. Just as she was about to approach the bodies, she heard running steps and whirled around.

"Don't shoot!" Pierre hissed, hands held high.

Andy jammed on the safety and dropped to a knee again, heart hammering, barely able to breathe. Pierre seemed to know all about that. He helped her up and gave her cheek a light slap, and Andy blinked at him.

"Better?" he asked.

"Yeah. Thanks," Andy said. "You followed me?"

"We found another three, also dead now. I can run faster than anyone else, but they're coming."

A groan came from their left and Andy and Pierre hurried over to the bodies. One of the men was still alive, seemingly coming back to consciousness.

"Shit," Andy muttered and took a knee to get a look at his wounds. She grimaced. "He's not gonna make it, but what now?"

"We kill him quick, or let him suffer. But maybe he can still talk. Your German's good, no? Try."

"Okay. Search the others," Andy said. And in German: "What's your name?"

"Huh?" the dying man muttered.

" _Name_ ," Andy growled.

"Gertmann. Heinrich... Gertmann."

"Heinrich, what were you three doing here?"

"Listening. Waiting..." he nodded towards his left, to a black box, and said, "Direction-finder."

"You were trying to catch a transmission?"

"Yes."

"And then?"

"Trap her... the Silver Vixen."

"I get it. If you could get clear signals, strong enough signals, then you could send men here?"

"Yes. We have... we have a new commander, in Vichy. Stupid man!"

"He didn't listen, huh?" Andy said.

Heinrich shook his head. He coughed and gripped Andy's coat.

"If he succeeds... then many of my friends... will die. Car. Over there... Put us inside, drive to... the tracks... Boar's Wood crossing, after the bend. There's a train at..."

Heinrich's eyes fixed and his face went slack.

"When's the train to Vichy due at the Bois de Sanglier crossing?" Andy asked Pierre.

"Two hours, or a little more. Why?"

"We're gonna do exactly what ol' Heinrich here said," Andy said.

While she pulled dead fingers off of her coat lapel, Andy explained the plan again, to make sure that Pierre and his friends understood. Michel suggested that they keep the radio signal direction-finder but Andy called that too much of a risk: it had to go with the dead men and their car. She took out a pocketknife and opened the blade.

"We gotta get the bullets out," she said, feeling sick. "Fuckin' Krauts always check their dead."

"Let's go get the other bodies," Michel told two men.

"One of you run to the chateau, get help," Andy said.

Within fifteen minutes Nigel and Alain had been dispatched on foot to tell James Holt what was going on, and Henri, Emily, and Miranda were helping with the grisly task of removing lead from the dead Germans. Miranda had brought two pairs of forceps along to make that task easier.

Only one of the other three Germans had been shot, and there were just two rounds to collect there. Michel and another man had killed the other two with knives. Andy had fired twenty rounds. One had missed and they retrieved the other nineteen bullets. Andy counted them again to make sure.

"Here's the miss, in a tree," Pierre said, pointing out the dink in the trunk. He spat on the dirt and rubbed the resulting mud into the trunk. "But we can't do much about the blood."

"Cover it with leaves," Miranda said. "That's as much as we dare do. They look for roiled-up dirt. There's less chance of them finding this place if all we do is scatter leaves."

"What if they bring dogs?" Andy asked.

"They're not tracking dogs, _chérie_ ," Henri said while helping Pierre with the leaves. "They are chasers. Let them off the leash, and they chase and catch whoever runs away."

"So they keep them on the leash?" Andy asked.

"I've never heard of Gerry slipping dogs for any reason other than a chase," Emily said, nodding. "Are we finished?"

"Seems so," Miranda said. "How will we handle their car?"

"Tow it," Michel said.

Others agreed so Andy went along with that idea, too. She helped to load the bodies into the big Renault town-car, and she also helped to rig it with a few small incendiary charges, to help it to burn. One of those charges was attached to a stick-grenade taken from one of the soldiers. Three other grenades would blow when that one did.

A towline was attached to the Renault and to Henri's truck. It was a risk but everyone rode along, because they didn't know how hard it would be to roll the heavy Renault into the right position on the tracks. Just as well: the damn towline broke about a hundred meters from the tracks, and the car had to be pushed.

"Do we start it?" Pierre asked of the car.

"Just turn the ignition switch to 'On,'" Miranda said. "That way it'll seem like it stalled, and they couldn't start it again."

"The train, she's coming!" Henri said.

Michel was closest to it, and jumped into the truck and drove it away without waiting for anyone: standard practice. Miranda grabbed Andy's hand and they jogged into the trees with Henri and Emily. They stopped at a safe distance and waited, but not for long.

The train steamed around the bend at about forty miles per hour, and there was no time for the engineer to push the brake lever. As the train hit the car, so the incendiary charges blew and the car burst into flames. Almost simultaneously, the grenades went off, and any damage to the bodies in that car would be blamed on that secondary explosion.

"If we're lucky..." Emily said.

"I'm almost certain that we will be," Miranda said. "But I want to know about this _new commander_ in Vichy... Let's go. Henri, where do you think Michel will wait for us?"

"Not far," Henri said.

They found the truck waiting less than a mile down the road, and when everyone was in the bed or cab, Michel drove as fast as he dared. Andy had a seat against the back of the cab, and Miranda had comfortably tucked herself into Andy's side. Emily passed them a lit cigarette and Andy and Miranda shared it, their barely-warm fingers brushing occasionally, the smoke whipping away down the dark road behind them.

Andy's mind was a blank for now, and she hoped it would stay that way for a while. She focused on the fact that she'd done everything right, and that she couldn't have done anything better. In fact, if she'd managed better and had killed all three of those men outright, there was no guarantee that anyone else would've come up with Heinrich's brilliant and rather selfless plan.

At the chateau, Andy raised a glass of brandy.

"Thank you, Heinrich," she said quietly.

" _Oui_ ," Pierre said. "To a good man, in the end."

Everyone muttered agreement, but they also muttered along in agreement with Emily's confusion:

"None of them were Gestapo," she said. "Just Wehrmacht men, and only one was a junior officer– I don't know what to make of that. Ordinarily the Gestapo are the ones who hunt radio signals."

"Maybe that new commander couldn't talk the Gestapo into disobeying someone else's orders," Nigel said.

"That sounds likely, to me," James said around a cigar between his teeth. He took it out and ashed it, then gestured with it while he said, "The Gestapo have definitely got orders, regarding Miranda, and not only the Gestapo: we haven't seen a single Wehrmacht patrol in this area in nearly five months. But if there's someone new throwing his weight in Vichy, then all bets are off."

"Heinrich was really worried about his buddies," Andy said.

"I heard that in his voice, too," Pierre said. "The man is dying, but he makes sure to help us, so that his friends face less risk? That new _Boche_ commander is as much a worry to the _Boche_ soldiers, as he is to us."

"And we might be able to use that..." Miranda murmured, staring at the liquid in her glass. She took a sip, and said, "Emily, who do we have in Vichy?"

"One of James' mates, currently a sitter," Emily said and poured herself another shot of brandy. "He'll consider this a good enough reason to go active."

"You mean Christian?" James asked.

"Yes. What do you think– am I right?"

"Yeah," James said. "By now Chris is itching to do something. Dunno why he didn't tell us about Mister New Kraut, though."

"Y'know what?" Andy said. "Heinrich didn't give that man a rank."

"That's real weird, coming from a Wehrmacht fella," James said, frowning. "I mean, sure, the Gestapo use police ranks, but your average Wehrmacht Fritz gives a rank to anyone who's got one."

"Right," Andy said. "So maybe that new 'commander' is a civvie."

"The Germans don't appoint civilians here," Miranda said. "So it could simply be a case of that commander being so new, and Heinrich so distressed, that he forgot the man's rank. Whatever the case, James, tell Mister Thompson to stop sitting, and start doing. I want any available intelligence on that new commander by noon on Wednesday."

"Yes, ma'am," James said. He tossed back the rest of his drink and stood. "Anything else?"

"That's all," Miranda said.

James bid everyone goodnight and strode to the cellar doors. By now Andy knew that there'd be a messenger dispatched to Vichy within the hour.

For the next half-hour or so, Miranda said very little, and Andy wondered about that, wondered why Miranda had chosen to stay here in the brandy cellar instead of leaving, as she usually did. The reason only dawned on Andy when Emily pulled the steel doors closed and Miranda locked them: after she'd pocketed the key, she slipped her hand into Andy's.

"I wouldn't have minded leaving with you," Andy said.

"I'd have minded that," Miranda said.

"Pierre and Michel are all right, but the other three are a bit young," Emily said.

"Mmm, and while I don't care who knows," Miranda said. "I'd rather not have young bucks thinking it's all right to sit in _my_ brandy cellar and discuss the possible details."

"And those three definitely would," Emily said. She opened the kitchen door and waved Andy and Miranda ahead. After locking the door, Emily said, "If there's nothing else you'd like to talk about, Miranda..."

Miranda shook her head and bid Emily a good night. No sooner had Emily left the kitchen than Miranda slipped her arms around Andy's neck and kissed the soft spot just in front of her ear.

"All right?" Miranda asked softly.

"Dunno yet," Andy said honestly, and she hugged Miranda tightly. "Dunno how to feel about Heinrich—never gonna forget him, that's sure."

"We'll be acting on his dying wish," Miranda said. "You really should focus on that, darling, but if you have trouble there, remember this: if you hadn't shot them first, they would've killed you."

"I think the only reason they didn't shoot first was cos I'm female," Andy said. "Which is idiotic. I mean, exactly when are men gonna take us seriously?"

"Considering that some men have been known to laugh at women carrying high-powered weapons, I have no clue." Miranda kissed Andy's cheek and stepped back. "Go to bed, Andrea. I don't think taking you to mine is a good idea. Not now, not tonight."

"Wouldn't need much convincing," Andy admitted and felt her face heat up. "Which is exactly why... G'night."

Andy kissed Miranda's cheek and for the second time tonight, she walked away without looking back. In the room she shared with Emily, Andy shut the door and leaned against it.

"Did she make it hard to say No?" Emily asked plainly.

"No, but I nearly did," Andy said.

"That wouldn't have been a good idea tonight," Emily said and turned a page of her book.

"And that makes three. Great minds think alike?"

"I find more often that sensible minds think alike."

"Now you mention it..." Andy unslung the suppressed Sten and made sure the safety was on before putting it under her bed. "Remind me to put that back in the basement tomorrow morning. And I probably wrecked the suppressor. Sorry."

"Andy," Emily said and set her book aside. "You never apologize for remaining in one piece, you silly goose. That suppressor's just bits of metal, and tomorrow Nigel and I will replace the baffles. Thirty-minute job. If you like, you can learn how it's done."

"I'm always up for learning stuff," Andy said while unlacing her boots. She remembered blowing up the switch track, and said, "I made the tracks go _BOOM!_ I really liked that."

"Distinctly satisfying, isn't it?" Emily chuckled.

"Oh yeah," Andy said.

She peeled off her sweater and once it had cleared her head, she caught Emily staring at something. Andy looked down and found that her wrists, above the place where she'd washed earlier, were stained orange-brown: dried blood.

"Fuck..." Andy mumbled and slowly lowered herself to the edge of her bed.

She was vaguely aware of Emily moving, leaving the room, but only vaguely. Andy couldn't tear her eyes away from the stains. She didn't know whose blood that was, but she remembered the urgency in Heinrich's voice, and she remembered, too, that he'd caught more bullets than the other two men. Andy had removed most of that lead herself.

"Andrea?"

"Huh?"

Andy blinked and looked up at Miranda, who smiled.

"Let's get you cleaned up, hmm?" she said lightly.

"Yeah," Andy mumbled.

Emily came in with a basin of warm water, and Andy allowed Miranda and Emily to wash her arms to the elbow.

"Won't lie to you, goose," Emily said. "You never get used to it; it never gets better."

"That's... Why's it so comforting to hear that?" Andy mumbled.

"The people who get used to it have lost some of their humanity," Miranda said. "And some of them have deliberately abandoned it. But that will never be you."

"Couldn't have put it better," Emily said in agreement.

Andy felt her eyes begin to well with tears, and this time she didn't hold them back. After all, the very human response to this crazy mess, was to cry.

~ ~ ~


	3. Chapter 3

**_THREE_ **

Days before Christian Thompson arrived in person, he sent word to Miranda that a certain _SS-Oberführer_ Dieter von Tauplitz was fit to be tied. Miranda promptly dubbed von Tauplitz 'the Colonel' which he'd hate if he found out: an _SS-Oberführer_ was supposedly the equivalent of an Allied brigadier, but that rank of _Oberführer_ belonged to the SS alone and had been sucked out of Hitler's thumb.

Since it had become known that _der Führer_ himself had never risen above the rank of _gefreiter_ , or lance corporal during the Great War, Allied and in particular Russian officers had unofficially taken to knocking any SS officer down at least a full peg in rank, and Nazi Party political officers—including their _Führer_ —were quite strictly and dismissively regarded as civilian upstarts in uniform. That was rather a telling mark, especially among Allied officers who prided themselves in adhering to the courtesies accorded to captured enemy officers. Those Allied men were still trying to fight a gentleman's war, but many had realized that the enemy didn't deserve as much. Holding a rank or person in contempt was, however, as low as those Allied officers would stoop.

"Good show for them," Emily said one evening while playing cards. "But I'll be buggered if I'll be as nice. My poor mother would be scandalized at the fact that I struggle daily with an urge to find the nearest Gerry officer, deliberately drop something, and when he bends to pick it up, I'll kick his arse so bloody hard..."

"Maybe we could do that and run away fast enough?" said Nigel.

"Nah, what you need is a getaway car," Andy said. "I volunteer as wheel-man... wheel-person?"

"'Driver' is a good word," Miranda said and placed two cards on the table. "Blackjack."

"Again?" Nigel complained. "That's the third time tonight."

"But only three out of seven hands: my luck's not running as hot as I'd like," Miranda said. She sat out the next hand and lit a cigarette. "I have to wonder what the Colonel is playing at..."

"I wonder about that, but also his name," Emily said. "Tauplitz is a town in Austria, but wasn't that noble title of ' _von_ ' banned in Austria after the Great War?"

"I read about that," Andy said, nodding. "That was in Nineteen-nineteen. The _Adelsaufhebungsgesetz_ , the abolition of the nobility."

"Given the bits and pieces that I picked up, on my way here from Le Havre," Nigel said. "Since the _Anschluss_ in Thirty-eight ol' Hitler's refused to have that law enforced. In general, the Austrian nobles are quietly encouraged to take back ' _von_ ' or ' _zu_.'"

"That sounds... typical of the Nazi bastards," said Miranda.

"Doesn't it?" Emily muttered. "They annexed Austria under some ridiculous ruse to unite all _ethnic_ Germans, and that was supposed to be a 'peaceful' action. There's nothing peaceful about it; nothing at all, and proof of that lies in these little rumors we hear, of Austrian laws being publicly overturned or flouted. Anyway, if that abolition of noble titles is being ignored, then the Colonel may well be Dieter _of_ Tauplitz..."

"Then maybe he's not even a colonel?" Andy said. "If I'm right about that, then Heinrich not giving Tauplitz a rank makes a lotta sense."

"True," Miranda said. "It's strongly rumored that the _Heer_ , the Army members of the Wehrmacht, tend to look down their noses at the SS commanders, because the majority of the founding members had no military training."

"Yeah," Nigel said. "For God's sake, Himmler was only ever a reservist during the last war, but he heads the SS and he's a fucking agronomist, a soil scientist!"

"You're joshing, surely," Andy mumbled.

"He's not," Emily said, shaking her head. "And before Himmler became _Reichsführer-SS_ , one of the founding SS members was a watchmaker."

"I was thinking of _SS-Oberführer_ Emil Maurice, actually," Miranda said. "Himmler, Maurice, and men like them with no military experience at all were given military and then paramilitary ranks. The ones who'd served in the Great War were responsible for training the rest. Tauplitz needn't have any military background, other than what he's picked up since he joined the SS."

"But if he _is_ inexperienced, then he has to be someone's favorite," Andy said.

"That, or someone higher up the ladder at least feels that he's capable of doing a good job in Vichy," Emily said. "And either way, we'd better go right canny, as the Scots would say. We can't afford even small mistakes, whatever we end up doing."

"Agreed," Miranda said.

The next couple of days were very busy. It was time to begin winter pruning of the vineyards, and Miranda usually liked to take her secateurs, choose a row of vines, and just _go_ , but she decided to take care of Andy's pruning tuition herself. This first pruning wasn't an especially complicated business: the canes had to be cut off eight or ten inches above the vine-stock. The second pruning near the end of winter required more skill, and one had to get an eye for which canes to cut close to the vine-stock, and which to leave a few inches longer, as fruiting canes. Andy picked up the knack for the first pruning run rather quickly and for a while she and Miranda made their way between two rows together, working back-to-back. Once those rows were done, Andy went off to prune another row by herself, and Miranda ended up working back-to-back with Nigel.

"You could've tagged along," Nigel said.

"Hmph," said Miranda.

She eyed a group of canes and snipped them off. As she always did, she checked the cut wood for the dark blemished pith that was a sign of disease.

"All clean so far," Nigel said knowingly, while his secateurs _snip-snip-snipped_. "About Andy: why didn't you stick with her?"

"It's unwise to meddle with that independent streak of hers," Miranda said. And: "You don't usually ask me that sort of question."

" _You_ don't usually... dilly-dally when it comes to getting what you want," Nigel shot back. "I'm quite naturally confused."

"I see," Miranda said. "Well, if it's any help, I'm not at all confused. Let's leave it there, shall we?"

"Sure," Nigel said.

And as usual, he meant it. Miranda paused in her work and kissed his cheek.

"She'll be hurt if you don't tell her it's your birthday," Nigel said quietly. "Yes, there'll be a little party later, but I don't have to be told: I know she's clueless."

"You can tell her, but not now," Miranda said. She stepped out of the way and a group of children picked up the pruned-off canes and rushed off to burn them. "I want these fifteen acres pruned _today_."

"I'll talk to her later," Nigel said and picked up the pace of his work.

'Later' turned out to be lunchtime. Miranda was eating her cheese-and-pickle sandwiches alone under a tree, and Andy arrived at a jog. She flopped down next to Miranda and smacked a loud kiss on her cheek.

"Happy birthday," Andy said, smiling. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I prefer to make a fuss over my birthday when the fuss will involve half an ox spitted over a fire, plenty of other food and wine, and lots of people. But there's a war on, dammit."

"But I'm guessing that even if there wasn't a war on, you'd be working on your birthday."

"Pruning has to be done as quickly as possible," Miranda said with a shrug. "Have you been working on ambidexterity, as I suggested?"

"Yeah, I switch the secateurs to my left hand before the right gets tired, and switch back to the right just as the left gets tired. Still, both my arms wanna fall off, from the elbow down."

"I remember the feeling well," Miranda said. "Because I end up feeling it every year, as does everyone else."

"My dad prunes his roses with loppers," Andy said. "Like secateurs, but they've got long handles and you use both hands."

"Like hedge-shears?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hmm," said Miranda. "Go and describe those loppers to Alain. He might just drag you off to the workshop."

"Okay," Andy said.

She blessed Miranda's cheek with another kiss before hurrying off to find Alain. Miranda had been pruning again for more than an hour when Andy arrived with Alain, who presented Miranda with a pair of long-handled secateurs. Alain explained that he'd melted off the India rubber grips on the original metal handles, and had bored two twelve-inch lengths of broom-handle to take the bared metal shafts. Miranda brandished her "new" secateurs and five vine canes fell to the ground in quick succession.

"Fast!" Alain exclaimed.

"Oh yes, and hardly any effort required: marvelous," Miranda chuckled. She handed the secateurs back to Alain. "Send someone to Thierry and ask him to find whoever needs a bit of work. Start with our spare secateurs: put handles like these on all of them."

" _Oui_ , I am going," Alain said, already marching away.

"Hey, I did something right, kinda by accident," Andy said.

"You, my darling, have possibly ensured that we'll finish the second pruning, close to spring, in as few as twelve days," Miranda said. "We can only have skilled hands doing that work, and those skilled hands will be very grateful of those lopper-type secateurs."

"Okay," Andy said with a small grin. "So how long does the second pruning usually take?"

"The fastest we've ever managed it, before the war and when I had twice as many skilled pruners available, was sixteen days straight. To give you an idea, we have fifty people working here today, and at forty man-hours per acre we're pruning one-and-a-quarter acres per hour: we should manage to prune fifteen acres per day, or the whole vineyard in twelve days. Second pruning... If I get twenty skilled pruners for the second pruning, I'll count myself lucky, but even if there's only fifteen of us with those lovely loppers, we should get the job done in record time."

"But I don't understand why you haven't used loppers here before now," Andy said and began to prune the vine in front of her. "Seems so logical to use things that make life easier."

"Traditions are hard to break," Miranda said wryly, and she was also pruning again. "There are fewer men available, so women are doing more agricultural work. When this war's over, there'll still be a shortage of able-bodied men, and easier ways of doing things will have to be found. I expect to see far more tractors at work, and fewer dray- and plow-horses. I expect that steam-powered or even electrically-powered grape-presses will become the norm instead of the frowned-upon exception. And so on and so forth... And I'm already the frowned-upon exception. Alain and I are accused of over-planting, because we've planted half again the traditional number of rows of vines on fifty of these acres. It's an experiment with surprising results: the supposedly over-planted fifty acres boasts healthier, hardier vines that individually produce half again as many bunches of grapes. Alain and I have concluded that it's because they suffer less from the weather."

"Huddled for warmth, huh?" Andy chuckled.

"Something very much like that, yes," Miranda said. "And when they start to leaf over, that shade makes it difficult for weeds to grow, so the weeds don't steal anything from the vines. Related to that, fewer weeds mean less time spent clearing weeds. There's a list of things we've noted, but huddled for warmth is right at the top. There was a bad snap frost around mid-spring a few years back, and we lost vine-stocks in other parts of the vineyard, but none among that fifty-acre patch."

Miranda went on to explain that there were some disadvantages to planting one-and-a-half times the usual number of rows, first among them the need to constantly watch for disease, because it would spread more easily in closely planted rows. She'd expected Andy to start saying, "Mmm," and "Oh?" and other noncommittal expressions denoting boredom, but instead Andy asked questions that led Miranda to keep talking about viticulture. Miranda eventually got around to admitting that she'd never expected to like it as much as she did. She'd thought at first to restore the chateau and the other buildings, and to get the vineyards back into production state, and after that perhaps sell the place.

"The trouble is, I like to win," Miranda said. "Still, I didn't expect to become obsessed to the point where, within ten years, I was considered as much an expert as Alain's father. I read everything I could get my hands on—I learned Portuguese and Greek in order to read what some of Portugal and Greece's viticulturists had to say. France is considered the world leader in wine and champagne, but the Portuguese have been producing wine for nearly two-thousand years, and the Greeks for around six-thousand years. It made sense to read and learn from them."

"Plain old common-sense, yeah," Andy said. "Em told me that the Krauts used to take half of everything you produced here."

"And at first I went along with it," Miranda said. "I thought that it would make for fewer tensions, and perhaps fewer people nearby would be harassed. But I was wrong on that score, and I got the hell-in with it. So I asked permission to make it stop, to make the damned Germans avoid me like the plague. There was not one single objection from anyone in this area, despite the risks involved. So in just one night, Henri, six other partisans, and I led sixteen actions against the Germans and the _Vichyste_. They lost over two-hundred tons of materiel, but not one German or _Vichyste_ man was harmed. A message was left at each location saying that that was just the start, unless they stayed away from this area. We deliberately made it easy for the Germans to find out that I was behind those actions. That also made it easy for the local people to find out the same. After that night, the Wehrmacht ceased to patrol within five miles of this chateau, and since then no-one has come to collect forty to fifty percent of anything and everything we produce here. There's also been far less harassment of people in this area."

"And there were no reprisals at all?" Andy asked.

"None. They dared not," Miranda said. "As I said, the local people knew I was behind those sabotage raids, and the number of people supportive of me doubled overnight. Within a week, as word spread, that original number was easily quadrupled, and some of those people were and are Parisians. As I told you once, the Germans and the _Vichyste_ are pretty much stuck where I'm concerned."

"Tauplitz needs an education in that regard," Andy said.

"And he'll get one," Miranda, and snipped off a vine cane for emphasis.

Christian Thompson arrived in time for Miranda's little party. A young bullock had been slaughtered and most of the meat had been given away. One hind leg was being aged; the other would feed the residents and guests at the chateau tonight, and there'd be leftovers for sandwiches tomorrow. Miranda didn't allow any discussion of business for a couple of hours, and Christian seemed quite happy with that.

As Miranda had suspected, Mr. Thompson, ever the shameless rake, flirted with Andy at the dinner table. Andy didn't so much as glance at Miranda for permission.

"Besides the fact that that's the worst line I've ever heard," Andy said. "I'm already spoken for."

"Ahh... _le_ boyfriend?" Christian guessed.

" _Ah mais non, la Renarde d'Argente_ ," Andy said, straight-faced: oh but no, the Silver Vixen.

Conversation around the table ceased, and Christian choked on a sip of wine. He managed to shake his head.

"No, you heard me right: I'm Miranda's girl," Andy said.

"Oh," Christian mumbled and glanced at Miranda, who was smirking. Christian gulped. "Umm... Forgive my faux pas."

"We'll forgive it, okay," Henri said. "Forget it? Not a chance!"

"Yeah, you're screwed in that regard," Nigel chortled.

"Poor boy..." Emily said and snorted a laugh.

"But at least like me and Miranda, he has good taste, no?" Arthur said.

The small crowd at the dinner table, including Andy, agreed with that. James Holt could only laugh and try to apologize to Christian at the same time– James wasn't very successful.

"Oh swell..." Christian snarked, but he was grinning wryly. To Miranda: "Of course, no contest."

"You say as much as if I would remotely consider you competition," Miranda said.

The laughter around the table evaporated, and the following quiet put Christian even more on-the-spot than had Miranda. Christian Thompson was mostly an unknown factor here. A test of character, beyond what was known of the man's tendency to flirt with anyone female, was well within Miranda's scope and rights. Christian cleared his throat.

"My comment probably came across as... dismissive and belittling," he said.

"Mmm, and not to mention, patronizing," said Miranda.

"I apologize," Christian said sincerely.

"Accepted," Miranda said briskly and stood. "Let's clear this table and get down to business."

A few minutes later, Christian was the one who rolled his sleeves and washed dishes, and Miranda was one of three people drying them and putting them away. Once that task had been completed, there was a small exodus to the brandy cellar and its heavy doors were barred from within. Christian mentioned that he'd expected to find this cellar filled with guns and ammunition.

"We keep that somewhere else," Henri rumbled. "Don't ask."

"I wouldn't," Christian said and helped himself to a cigar. "I make it a rule to know only what I have to know: less to sing about if I get caught."

"So you're sure you'll sing?" James asked.

"If I don't get to chew on that L-pill, I probably will," Christian said. "I think anyone would, at a certain point. I know what those Gestapo bastards do to people; I've come face-to-face with that monster Klaus Barbie– he waxes lyrical about torture like coin collectors do about gold staters."

"What does he look like?" Andy asked.

"Around five-nine, dark hair, with strange unmistakable grey eyes," Christian said.

"You're not the only one who's come face-to-face with him," Andy murmured. She had a sip of brandy, and continued: "He didn't personally torture me. He just kept checking in, asking for progress reports, like I was some kinda project. I only saw him properly when he came into the room and said for the gorillas to quit. I guess he doesn't bother with the ones who really don't know anything."

"I've heard as much," Christian said. "The worst is, he says he knows immediately. So he allowed you to be tortured anyhow, probably even ordered it. He's based in Lyon. I didn't know he was working in Paris, too... When did they kidnap you?"

"June tenth," Andy said.

"Barbie grabbed Jean Moulin on June twenty-first," Christian said pointedly.

"You're sure of this?" Henri asked.

"We're sure," Christian said, nodding. "So it's possible that Andy and her acquaintances being grabbed had something to do with that."

"That's a possibility, but here's something we can say for sure," Emily said. "And we can say it even though we may never hear it confessed from anyone: they managed to kill him, but Moulin didn't break. He knew about our _Maquisards_ in hiding here, and there've been no operations against them."

"I met Jean Moulin once," Miranda said. "And even during those brief ten or so minutes I knew he was the sort of man whom no-one could break. After all, he attempted suicide in prison but he didn't get it right, so he knew that if he couldn't break himself, no-one else would manage it."

" _Oui_ , I thought the same, that day," Henri said. "But he is gone, our hero, and we have someone else to talk about, no?"

Christian took that as his cue and began to describe _SS-Oberführer_ von Tauplitz. As had already been guessed, he was an Austrian, and he was one with a chip on his shoulder. After the Austrians had issued the abolition of the nobility in 1919, and thanks to outstanding debts, Tauplitz's family had been among those to come out of it with very little: they'd had to sell all but one small country house. His family had been large and after their debts were paid, they'd had to spend most of their remaining funds on several smaller homes. This had almost immediately reduced the family to the equivalent of upper middle class, with every male under fifty in the position of now having to work for a living. Dieter had been among those young men who'd had to find work in order to support himself.

"He was a teacher before the war," Christian said. "A history teacher... And I'm told that he'll tell his life-story to anyone who'll listen."

"I've known a few people like that," Miranda said. "They go through life believing that they've been forever wronged, and that they're deserving of sympathy."

"Right," Christian said. "And it seems the Nazis went looking for people like Tauplitz, even before Germany's _Anschluss_ of Austria. Tauplitz became a Nazi party member in Nineteen-thirty-two. In Thirty-four, he moved to Berlin and signed up with the SS. He was commissioned immediately as a lieutenant, got a desk job, but in Thirty-eight he was suddenly promoted to captain and sent straight to the _SS-Junkerschule_ in Bad Tölz, near Munich. That's the _Waffen-SS_ officer school. By the time he left that school, he'd been promoted major, and he got another boost up to his current rank just a month or so ago, when one of his ideas won a battle against our boys in Italy. That got him the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. He also got the Kraut equivalent of the American Purple Heart: he got his ear shot off, and took another round through his shoulder, and this appointment to Vichy is part of his convalescence... Gotta say, that school did a good job: you'd swear up'n'down that Tauplitz is military born and bred, and his staff who came along with him to Vichy all respect him."

"But it seems the Wehrmacht lads don't think enough of him to give him his rank," Emily said.

"That's especially so now, since he got six of their pals killed," Christian said. "Tauplitz has been calling them fools to get stuck on a railway line and not get the hell out of the car. The _Heer_ commanders in Vichy know better, but they're not ever going to inform Tauplitz of that. Even the Gestapo swines are keeping their lips zipped.

"They _want_ him to make more mistakes?" Arthur asked.

"Could be," Christian said. "Or they're trying to minimize the chance that he'll send men out in force against Miranda. One thing's sure, there's a breakdown in communication somewhere. I personally think it's with Tauplitz himself: he's been given standing orders regarding the Silver Vixen, but he's ignoring them, possibly thinking that if he can bring the Vixen to heel, he'll be nicely rewarded for it."

"In war, none so dangerous as an ambitious man..." Miranda muttered. She weighed her options and eventually settled on one that had repeatedly dropped into her mind over the last few days. "We'll preempt his next move... Where can I get my hands on at least five liters of red paint?"

" _What?_ "

"Paint..?"

"Huh?"

" _Oil-based_ red paint, and brushes. We'll also need rope, and short lengths of board," Miranda said and stood. "And we'll need at least six people who aren't afraid of heights. See to it. Goodnight."

Miranda managed to keep her face straight, but only until she got outside, where she snorted a quiet laugh: her friends' expressions had been priceless.

It took three days to gather everything she'd asked for, and in that time Miranda refused to explain her plan. Everyone became gradually more and more frustrated, but at the same time their imaginations were enlivened and the whole thing turned into a guessing-game. Miranda refrained from smirking at that small success– it was her responsibility to ensure that the morale of the people under her command remained high, and that guessing-game (and the betting pool that accompanied it) did exactly that.

"That you won't tell even me is horrible," Andy told Miranda.

"Darling, you don't want people accusing me of favoritism, do you?" Miranda said lightly.

"Well, no," Andy said quite seriously. Then: " _The cockerel sings sweetly?_ What the hell was that?"

Miranda also gave the radio an odd look. Radio-Londres, the BBC's French Resistance station, was usually the source of rather interesting codes, but this most recent really was due some criticism: never in the history of the world had a cockerel sung 'sweetly.'

Miranda was about to comment when the kitchen door flew open and Emily hurried to the radio. She twiddled a dial and an Englishman was soon talking about more than four-hundred RAF bombers over Berlin last night.

"We're listening to history, my friends," Emily said.

"Listening to it—Every time we bust up railway tracks, we _make_ history, Em," Andy said.

"True, but what I mean is, we're listening to the fall of the Third Reich. This is the beginning of the end, for Germany."

"I wonder if the Colonel's realized that," Miranda said. "If he has, we'll be adding insult to injury tonight."

"Oh, finally..." Andy grumbled.

"So she really hasn't told you?" Emily said.

"Uh-uh, I'm as clueless as you are," Andy chuckled.

"You're awful," Emily told Miranda.

Her only response was a laugh.

Several hours later Miranda explained to various people how to rig bosun's chairs from those short lengths of board and the rope. Each of them went over the side of a high bridge over a railway line, just a few minutes' drive outside of Vichy. Andy would be painting the first word in a six-word sentence:

_SS-Oberführer von Tauplitz hat es gemacht._

" _Von Tauplitz did this_ ," Emily translated. "Did what, exactly?"

"You'll see," Miranda said lightly. "You stay here and make sure they spell it all correctly."

"Oh for God's sake..." Emily grumbled.

Miranda ignored her and beckoned up Tomas, and they jogged along the railway tracks. This section of line was hardly ever patrolled because it followed a deep cut straight through a low hill– a perfect ambush site, and one that the Wehrmacht commanders made sure to tell their men to avoid. Miranda had never ordered this section of railway blown up, mostly for the fact that it was a line that, as a rule, bore nothing more important than passengers and mail. But at around seven a.m there was a rather special train due in Vichy, an armored train from Paris, one bristling with machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, and even an 88mm cannon. It was possible that it bore stolen artworks, and it would definitely be transporting at least one high-ranking SS officer.

In the dark, Miranda made out that the iron track in front of her was slowly moving. She pointed that out to Tomas.

"Did I have too much to drink?" Tomas said.

"No. There's more than one way to destroy a railway line... But TNT is a lot faster."

Tomas grunted a response and followed Miranda's lead when she stepped well-clear of that piece of jerking track; the metal was groaning slightly as it bent. It soon came free of its heavy oak ties, and up ahead Henri was heard telling someone to stop. Miranda and Tomas arrived in time to help attach chains to another length of track, and they took up a spare pry-bar to help a double team of eight plow-horses to get the next length of track free. It was hard work for the humans, but the heavy Belgian horses seemed quite at their ease, only straining a little.

The painting team eventually came down the track and extra hands helped the horses to work even more quickly. The lengths of track, four in all, were then dragged all onto one spot, within sight of the bridge and its shiny red message.

"Let's stand these tracks up," Miranda said. "As you'd stack rifles, with their barrels up, butts down."

"Or like the poles for a tepee?" James said, grinning.

"Mmm," said Miranda.

"This is getting better and better," Andy chortled.

"I wish we could see their faces in the morning," Henri rumbled.

"With no apologies, we can't take that risk," Miranda said, and with a grunt she helped hoist up a track. "Tomas, in the back of the truck is an old sheet, dyed red. Fetch it, please."

"This is to stop the train?" he asked.

"Yes," Miranda said. "We don't want a derailment: people might get hurt and then they mightn't see our little message on the bridge."

"You are evil," Tomas said. "Most evil, but in a very good way."

The red sheet was tied to the lengths of track, then came the job of raking leaves over the places where the horses' iron-shod hooves had left marks. Their handlers had been careful to bring the horses along a hardpack road and they'd left no tracks there. The job was soon done and all that remained was collection of the painting gear. After that came the long drive home.

There were stops every twenty minutes, to allow three cold people from the truck bed to swap with three warmer people in the cab. Miranda found Andy to be just as comfortable behind the wheel of that truck as she'd been behind the wheel of a sports car. Miranda asked about that.

"My dad's a carpenter," Andy said. "The first vehicle I learned to drive was his big Chevy flatbed. When I could drive that truck without grinding the gears I was allowed to drive the family car, a Ford Model Forty-B sedan."

"Ooh mamma, that's one _ugly_ motorcar..." James said.

"We've gotten spoiled here, haven't we?" Andy said, amused.

"I may never recover," James said. "Not that I'd want to."

"Me neither," Miranda said firmly. "But the days of bespoke coachbuilding are gone, I'm afraid. I can't see that craft lasting, not when auto manufacturers like Ford and Renault are mass-producing the bodywork to go with their chassis. Figoni et Falaschi put more than two-thousand man-hours into the hand-built body of my Talbot-Lago, but Ford can press out umpteen iterations of every body panel for its latest model in less than a day."

"All the more reason to find something nice here and take it back to the States," James said. "But I dunno that the Army will lemme do that."

"I have the space to store a vehicle," Miranda said. "Find something, and I'll keep her until you can get her to the States."

"I'll take you up on that. Thanks," James said. "Got my eye on Luc de Martin's Alfa Romeo."

"That black-and-white Figoni Six-C?" Andy asked.

"The Seventeen-fifty, yeah. She's a beauty... That family needs the cash and I got what they're asking."

"Seeing as I didn't know Luc de Martin was selling her, I'll be nice," Miranda said. "I won't up the bid. She's yours."

"Hey, she'll need some running until I can ship her out, right?" James said with a grin.

"I'll look after her. You have a deal," Miranda said with a laugh.

"Y'know, I gotta wonder if my dad kept my car," Andy said.

"What is it?" Miranda asked.

"A Thirty-four Singer Nine Le Mans. It arrived on a boat and no-one pitched up to pay the freight tariffs and customs duties, so Dad got her at auction for a steal. She's no thoroughbred race-car, but she's cute."

"I used to scoot around in a Singer Nine Sports in London," James said. "For a little car she moves out smartly, I tell ya."

"Super light, hardly anything to a Nine, so that little engine pulls nicely," Andy said.

"What's under the hood?" Miranda said.

"If we tell ya, you'll have mean things to say, I promise," James chortled.

"Your Talbot engine is four times the capacity of the Singer Nine," Andy drawled. "Let's leave it at that."

Miranda agreed readily with that and changed the subject. All too soon their twenty minutes of warmth were up, and they swapped out with another three people. In the bed of the truck, Miranda allowed herself to be tugged in close to Andy's side, the two of them under a corner of a heavy old horse-blanket. In the greater scheme of things, they were all insane to be out in the cold, and colder for the air whipping past on this drive home. But it would be worth it; of that Miranda was almost entirely certain.

When they finally arrived at the chateau it was almost dawn, but at least it was Sunday. On other Sundays Miranda might've gone out to work alone in the vineyards, but even she planned to sleep for most of the day. She sank into bed under a pile of heavy covers: the best sort of drowning, and she'd just about dropped off to sleep when she heard her bedroom door open, and close. The covers were raised and that could be only one person, daring to climb in and cuddle up.

"Without so much as a by-my-leave, hmm?" Miranda chuckled.

"You'd glare at me if I asked permission," Andy said, certain.

"Mmm," Miranda agreed.

Andy spooned up tightly, and Miranda smirked in the dark, and she nearly laughed aloud when it dropped into her head that she was _snugly_ smug. She held that in and spent a while being deliberately awake and aware of the person behind her, the arm around her middle. Clearly, not so Andy: her breathing soon changed to that of someone out like a light. The last thing Miranda thought, before dropping off herself, was a small hope that Andy was tired enough that nightmares wouldn't trouble her.

They were awakened some hours later by a heavy rumbling.

"What the hell..." Andy grumbled.

"That is a tank," Miranda said through her teeth and scrambled out of bed.

" _Fuck_ ," Andy muttered and followed Miranda's lead.

Miranda didn't even bother with her old smoking jacket. It would be freezing outside but she knew, always, how to make an impression. She also knew exactly who was outside, in that damn tank, and the only pause Miranda made was a short stop in front of a certain closet. It had once held linen, but these days it held things far more offensive.

"Oh my God," said Emily, looking through a window. "I thought it might've been a half-track, but it's a _fucking_ Panzer!"

"Mark Three or Four?" Miranda asked calmly.

"Three, looks like," Emily said.

"Oh good," Miranda said. "Less armor, more easily damaged..."

She pushed a charging round into its brass nipple, screwed on the trigger cap, and shouldered a _Panzerfaust_ , the more powerful German version of the British bazooka. Miranda yanked open the front door with her free hand. The first person she met was a young Wehrmacht officer, who promptly spun around and ran like hell. Miranda laughed aloud and wearing only pajamas and house-slippers, she calmly strolled out among scattering soldiers, all of them yelling about the _Panzerfaust_. She aimed it at the tank, the turret of which was pointing some sixty degrees away from her. There was a man standing in the commander's hatch, trying to yell orders, but no-one was listening to him. Instead, on the orders of the young officer, the Wehrmacht men had slung their weapons and were neatly forming a column at a _safe_ distance from the tank. Judging from his lack of an ear, the man in the tank hatch was von Tauplitz.

"You'll never bring that turret to bear before I blow up your silly tank!" Miranda hollered in German. "And you'll die before any of these men retaliate, if they do at all. They know me. You don't."

"We will see about that, bitch!" Tauplitz shouted over the chugging of the tank's engine. He hammered his hand on the tank's open hatch. "Aim at the house!"

"Do nothing!" the young officer yelled urgently. "That tank crew: do _nothing!_ "

Someone inside the tank killed its engine, and Tauplitz slapped his hand on the hatch again, telling them to restart that engine. The young officer shook his head and yelled for the tank crew to leave the engine off.

"I can shoot him for you," Emily offered, her rifle trained on Tauplitz.

" _Herr Oberführer_ , you are under arrest for unnecessarily endangering the lives of my men," the officer said loudly. His hands were visibly trembling, but his voice was steady. "Step down from the tank, or I'll order you shot."

"He means it, _old boy_ ," Emily said in very deliberate English. "Do you really want to go down in history as the Gerry officer shot by an Englishwoman? Get your arse off that tank, Tauplitz, or I'll blow your bloody head off."

Tauplitz's mouth opened and closed, and he looked from the officer to Emily and back again. The young officer took out his pistol and aimed it at Tauplitz, with both hands.

"You're under arrest," the officer repeated. "Get down. Now."

"You'll be stripped of your commission for this, Hertzog," Tauplitz snarled. "I will see to—"

" _Feuer!_ " Hertzog barked.

Emily pulled the trigger at once, but it seemed that she and Hertzog weren't the only ones aiming at Tauplitz: his body jerked as several other rounds hit him, and he slumped over the side of the hatch. Someone pushed the body from below and it slid limply from the turret and tumbled first onto the long mudguard, and then to the cold ground. The tank crew followed in haste, all of them raising their hands as soon as they saw Miranda and that small cannon on her shoulder.

Miranda lowered the _Panzerfaust_ immediately, and she waved to Emily and Andy, who slung their weapons. While Miranda hooked the charging round out of the _Panzerfaust_ to make it safe, Henri, Nigel, and several partisans appeared, and they, too, had slung their weapons. Nigel and Henri walked straight up to Hertzog and Nigel offered him a cigarette. The young man took one with a shaking hand and muttered thanks to Henri for a match.

Andy had slipped inside and brought out Miranda's coat; she nodded her thanks to Andy and Emily took the _Panzerfaust_. Miranda slipped into the coat and buttoned it up, and walked over to the small huddle of tank crew, Hertzog, Henri, and Nigel. The tank commander was confessing in reasonably good French that he'd had his pistol trained on Tauplitz from below.

"One of those bullets in him is mine," the commander said. "We're not required to obey suicide orders from anyone, not even the _Führer_. And that's what we'll tell the brass in Vichy. You did it all right, _Oberleutnant_."

"Yes, I remembered the regulations," Hertzog said, nodding. He turned to Miranda and gave her a respectful nod. "Thank you for not blowing up my tank. But you could have."

"I want to win this war, not die in it," Miranda said with a shrug. "None of us wants to die today."

"Except for Tauplitz," Andy said and threw a dirty look at his body. "He definitely had a death-wish."

"I tell you, the man was mad," Hertzog said.

" _Ja_ ," the tank commander said. "When the bullet took off his ear, it also gave his head a bad knock. He was crazy, wanting to go out every day to find partisans and start fights. He even drew up a list of villages to raze, just because in the past partisans had called those places their homes. He was told No every damn day by our _Heer_ commanders. We don't think he talked to them this morning."

"And then we arrived here..." Hertzog shook his head and gulped loudly. "I thought we were all going to die."

"You should get a medal for making sure that didn't happen," Miranda said seriously.

Hertzog waved off agreement from the tank commander and his crew.

"So what did that SS bigshot have to say when he got our message on the bridge?" Andy asked.

"Only that he would be getting Tauplitz transferred at once," Hertzog said. "The, uhh, bigshot is not SS, but he is none other than _Reichsmarschall_ Hermann Göring."

The tank commander spat on the ground at mention of that name, and members of his crew muttered quiet cusses about a traitor who was getting little boys killed. Miranda shook her head at Emily, and whatever Emily had been about to say was buttoned up and swallowed, but her expression was both regretful and murderous. Miranda agreed and let Emily see it: if they'd known exactly who the _bigshot_ was, they'd have risked everything to kill him. Too late for that now.

Hertzog asked for a count, without names, of who had shot at Tauplitz. Including Hertzog himself, Emily, Andy, and the tank commander, the number was thirteen. Hertzog called for eleven volunteers among his men but all thirty of them raised their hands, so he asked again for the eleven eldest. Birth-dates were compared, and one of the men wrote those names down in a list. The tank commander took the scrap of paper and added his name and Hertzog's to it. He and Hertzog patched together a brief sham report, and called all their men together: they agreed that _SS-Oberführer_ von Tauplitz had told them what he wanted them to do, but while they were still some distance from Miranda's chateau.

"And we refused to disobey the standing order to stay way from this place," a young soldier said.

"And then Tauplitz pointed his pistol at you," the tank commander said to the youngster. "You're the youngest with us, yes?"

"He is," another man said. "He's just sixteen."

"That's criminal," Andy stated.

"We have no choice," the young fellow said. "If we don't fight we can be shot by the _Kettenhunde_ —the military police. There are boys younger than me, Hitler Youth boys fighting on the Eastern Front. Some are only fourteen. I was told that they'll soon be sending some here, too, all very young."

"Criminal," Andy repeated, and she wiped sudden tears from her eyes. "I hope you get home in one piece, pal."

She shouldered her way out of the group, and Miranda plucked Emily's sleeve and shook her head.

"Leave her be."

" _Oui_ ," Henri agreed. He elbowed Hertzog, and said, "You send this boy to surrender to us, when it's time."

"You do that, Hertzog," Nigel said in agreement. "We'll take him in. You'll know when it's time, huh?"

"I'll know," Hertzog said. "Will anyone here object?"

Every man shook his head, and the youngest of them bit his lip. Miranda could read that boy like a book: he wanted to surrender right now. She guessed that they'd be seeing him again, and quite soon.

Just a few minutes later the Wehrmacht men wrapped Tauplitz's body in a tarpaulin, and piled into the two trucks that had brought them, and the tank rumbled away in the lead. Miranda stood in the yard a while, her nose wrinkling at the heavy exhaust smoke in the air. Another rumble was heard eventually, and Henri arrived riding a steamroller. Miranda got out of the way and the roller began to wipe out the tank's tracks.

In the kitchen Miranda found Andy picking at a bowl of oats.

"Eat," Miranda said quietly, but firmly.

Andy blinked at her, but took a full spoon of oats and ate it obediently. Miranda got herself a bowl of the stuff, adding a nub of butter, a shake of salt, and milk, which was Emily's habit, and Miranda had come to like it. She guessed that Andy had added sugar to hers.

"What a way to start the day..." Miranda muttered.

"Well, it's something to tell the grandkiddies," Nigel said wryly.

"And it's already afternoon, just by the bye," Emily drawled.

"Yeah, look at that," Andy said, looking at a clock. "We're having breakfast for lunch, and a pretty late lunch... I can't stop thinking about that kid."

"Hertzog said he'll send that boy here," Nigel said. "But you hear Uncle Nigel now: that young fella talked about the _Hitlerjugend_ , the Hitler Youth. They're all crazy little bastards who believe they're the master race and that they're gonna win the war for Germany."

"Brainwashed, the whole bloody lot of them," Emily said, nodding.

"You might see a kid in uniform, and think to spare him, but he'll just kill you," Nigel said. "The Russians have already learned not to try to help those kids: the ones who try end up dead."

"And the _Hitlerjugend_ don't take prisoners," Miranda said.

"Do we know that for sure?" Andy said and pushed away her porridge bowl. "I mean, rumor has it among Kraut soldiers that the Canadians take no prisoners, and I gotta tell ya, given I know some Canadians, I think that's a load of bull."

"That particular rumor is probably true on certain days," Nigel said. "It's true of the British, the Canadians, the Americans, the Russians, the Free French, and the Poles—it's true of anyone in a jam: outnumbered, overpowered, the order becomes 'No prisoners.' In a jam, it's an order you might give yourself. The _Hitlerjugend_ are permanently in a jam, Andy-girl. They're kids, and no matter how well-armed those kids are, grown men are not gonna listen to them."

"Those kids are ordered to shoot anyone who surrenders," Miranda said. "That's part of their indoctrination, because their commanders know that grown men will try to talk those boys into letting them go. And the _Hitlerjugend_ don't surrender either. They fight to the death. From the Eastern Front we've been hearing stories of fanatical fifteen-year-old boys crawling under Russian tanks with anti-tank mines strapped to their backs—blowing themselves up to stop those tanks."

"Dear God, this crazy war..." Andy mumbled.

"And we have to win it," Miranda said quietly. She said to Andy again: "Eat. You must, or you'll get into a habit of skipping meals. I speak from experience."

Andy blinked at Miranda who nodded her head in Emily's direction, and Emily in turn nodded confirmation but only that: she didn't elaborate. Miranda would, if Andy asked, but Miranda had an idea that Andy wouldn't ask. These days the truth confirmed was enough, and details didn't matter—usually. Andy had questioned the truth once already today. She pulled her bowl closer and began to eat again.

Over the next few days the common question was: "I wonder how things went for _Oberleutnant_ Hertzog and his men?" The answer came in late on Thursday night, almost midnight. A soft knocking was heard on the front door of the chateau but before Miranda reached that door, she heard a yelp outside, and muffled voices. She opened the door to find Tomas holding a gun on the sixteen-year-old Wehrmacht soldier, but he was wearing civilian clothes tonight.

"Hertzog sent me," the boy said, his shaking hands held high above his head.

"I've searched him," Tomas said. "Nothing, not even a pocketknife. Is this the boy Henri talked about?"

"Yes, and he looks like a half-drowned rat," Miranda said.

"I swam over that river east of here, because there are guards on the bridge."

"Find him some dry clothes," Miranda ordered. "Then bring him back."

"All right. Come on, boy," Tomas said. "And put your hands down, you look stupid."

"Sorry."

Miranda bit back a laugh and went into the kitchen, where Emily had already put the kettle on for tea. Andy commented that it seemed that Hertzog had jumped the gun a little.

"I think he knows more than we do," Miranda said.

"All the Germans here are expecting British and American paratroopers any day now," Emily said. "Half the Gerry soldiers evacuated from Sicily have been stationed south of here. That's a battle-readiness action, and that's probably why Hertzog sent the lad here so soon."

Emily's guess proved true: the boy confirmed it even before telling them his name, Erlich.

"That's not your name," Henri rumbled. "From now on you're Evrard. Your French is good, like you're from somewhere near the border with Alsace."

"I am, and my mother was born in Strasbourg," Evrard said. "That's why they sent me here to France, because of my French... Will you keep me here?"

"Not a chance," Emily said. "Someone's on his way to talk to a group of partisans whose job it is to smuggle things across the border with Spain."

"You're a boy and you can be a smuggler, but never a fighter," Nigel said.

" _Oui_ ," Henri said. "No-one can ask you to kill your own countrymen. We'll never do that to you."

"Have you sent many German boys to Spain?" Evrard asked and sipped his tea.

"Just one other," Miranda said. "Now. Did _Oberleutnant_ Hertzog get into trouble?"

"No. Even von Tauplitz's staff were quick to say that Hertzog followed the regulations to-the-letter. After all, it was the Gestapo that issued the standing order to leave you alone here."

"That's because the Gestapo want all the _glory_ that will come of killing me," Miranda said.

"We know, but every time they've tried, they've failed," Evrard said. "I think even they have given up by now... They know it didn't happen like we told them, but they haven't asked anyone about it."

"You think they might?" Andy asked.

"No. The Silver Vixen is too much trouble, too dangerous," Evrard said. "As I said, I think even the Gestapo have given up."

At a little before one a.m, a car arrived and Evrard was soon sent on his way. When his temporary hosts went back inside, Miranda noticed a slight smile on Andy's face, the first in several days.

~ ~ ~

There were no unwelcome visitors met on Andy's way home tonight, but as usual after an excursion to do damage to railway lines, she was wound-up. Tonight had been her seventh raid, as Emily preferred to call them, and Andy had somehow graduated from detonating the TNT to actually setting it _and_ detonating it. She hadn't thought that the _Boom!_ could get more satisfying, but it was: taking care of the whole job was a lot more satisfying.

"I like that grin," Miranda said when Andy walked into the kitchen. "Nice big bang, was it?"

"Just big enough. What I suggested worked: we can use half our usual charge of TNT."

"You put it where the switch-track crosses?"

"Yeah," Andy said. "And it actually does more damage than two charges on the outer tracks leading in to the switch. It's that big concrete tie under the tracks there: blast hits it, fractures it, but also bounces back. That fucks up the tracks superbly: mangled."

"Excellent," Miranda said and handed Andy a mug of tea. She glanced at a clock. "I'd say 'Merry Christmas' but..."

"I dunno," Andy said with a wry grin. "I blew those tracks to hell and told the Krauts, ' _Fröhliche Weihnachten!_ '"

"You're impossible," Miranda chuckled.

"Hey, it's the fourth night of Hanukkah and I refuse to be a hypocrite and both have my lights and hide 'em, so I get to go blow shit up, and make fun of their damn holiday."

And there went the amusement: it fled right out of the kitchen and possibly fled the country, too. Andy began to apologize, but Miranda waved her off.

"You've every right to be at that stage where you've had a crawful," Miranda said. "Many would say—and I agree, that it's necessary. And I don't need you to tell me: I know that even though you thoroughly enjoy blowing up switch-tracks, you're almost itching to do more."

Andy hesitated, because she worried about 'more' and what it might entail, but after a minute or so she was honest and nodded agreement.

Andy and Emily had been in Paris this last week, where the cold was making life more miserable than usual. Few areas of Paris now had anything like consistent electricity. By some miracle there was still running water, when the pipes hadn't frozen and burst. Food was always a problem and even the black marketeers were having trouble getting as much as they usually did. Some of them had gone halfway honest, buying at fair prices from people like Miranda and selling at almost-fair prices in the cities. As for some people living in the countryside, if not for British and American airdrops that contained things like tins of spam and condensed milk, even more people would be starving. Despite airdrops and help from people like Miranda, villages all over France were reporting deaths as a result of malnutrition almost every week now.

That had to end. It had to be brought to an end, and Andy knew that it was up to people like herself to help make that happen.

"Our fellas across the Channel had better hurry their asses up," Andy said. "How long, d'you think?"

"Before they invade? They'd be insane to try it in winter," Miranda said. "Besides the weather making for a dangerously rough Channel crossing, rain and snow here is bogging down even German armor. As it is, we don't have tanks that can stand up to the Germans' damned tank-destroyers. If our armor gets stuck they'll be like tin ducks on a target range."

"Right," Andy said. It was time to ask the hard questions, and so: "What do we do now?"

"More," Miranda said. "More intelligence-gathering. More sabotage. Both of those things are a kind of damage. We'll continue to avoid killing Germans, but the _Vichyste_ must start paying now. We all too readily say that the Germans are the ones keeping the people here oppressed, but no, it's the _milice_ , and the corrupt, collaborating _Vichyste_ rats who whisper to the Gestapo and others... Henri's actions against the _milice_ have been paying off, and with no repercussions from the Germans. It's time to start broadening that action. The more successes we gain against the _milice_ in particular, the more support we'll gain from the people. If you put down treachery, you increase hope."

Even though Andy felt nauseous at the thought of more violence, she nodded: there was no escaping the fact that Miranda was right.

Two days later, of her own volition, Andy accompanied Henri and Michel. They set out on foot late in the afternoon; it was already almost dark, and Andy asked no questions. As soon as it was dark enough, the three of them took Stens from beneath their coats, and again Andy had one that was suppressed. The two men didn't plan to use their guns at all, and if need be Andy's would be the final, quiet sort of backup that would enable the three of them to get away as quietly as they'd arrived.

As for where they were headed, a little village about five kilometers from the chateau, where a certain man had, in Emily's parlance, been making a nuisance of himself. As of last week the man had acquired two young apprentices, and the three of them had gone from being only a nuisance, to being a menace. More than half of the village folk were well-past fifty, and all of them had been threatened until they'd handed over their money. One old lady had refused, and she'd died a few days after being slapped around by the three _milice_ bullies.

Henri had been sent a message saying that if the elder of those three men wasn't dealt with, several _Maquisards_ were likely to come out of hiding. They were young men, angry in a dangerous, unpredictable way, and it would be best if they didn't start down a path that might result in their actions being the cause of many people getting killed and hurt.

"Of course, the fucking _milice_ would love that to happen," Michel muttered while looking through binoculars. "Huh. Like clockwork. There he is."

"Going to buy his wine?" Henri asked.

"Buy it? Hmph. He'll probably steal it."

"True... Andy, you see that house, second from the end of the street?"

"Yeah."

"Go take a position at the corner closest to us."

Andy nodded and left the shadows, crouching as she walked to make less of her silhouette. Her heart was pounding but her hands were steady, as steady as they'd been when they'd faced down that damn tank right outside the front door of the chateau. Just as she had that day, Andy felt now that she had nothing to lose, that everything was focused only on the next minutes or hours. She had good cause to be here, good cause to see the end of this man. She wasn't French but she felt firmly that he was betraying her just as surely as he was betraying his countrymen. He was a threat and Andy firmly reduced him to a risk that needed to be minimized.

At the corner of the house in question, Andy eased into deep shadows, and she watched the stealthy approaches of Henri and Michel. They split up and Henri silently ducked into the shadow of a hedge; Michel tried the shutters over a window and opened them. He slid up the window next, and he climbed inside. After a few seconds there came a soft thump and a groan, and next a muffled cry was heard, and Andy worried that someone else might've heard it, but none of the neighbors opened doors or windows, and the local dogs remained silent.

Michel came to the window and hissed, and Andy stepped closer.

"The two young ones are tied up," Michel said. "Just stupid boys. They'll be scared now."

"And maybe less stupid," Andy said.

"Maybe."

Michel stepped away from the window, and Andy looked towards Henri, who was watching the street via a gap between two houses. He seemed like a statue, resting on a knee, dead-still, calm: patient. Several minutes passed before he looked Andy's way and nodded. Andy hissed softly through the window, and got a hiss in reply from Michel.

About a minute later Andy heard someone humming, and the clink of bottles, and a door was heard to open. It was banged shut and a dog barked briefly, and the humming continued for a while. The bottles were noisily set on a hard surface, and a man's voice cheerfully announced that he didn't pay a centime for the wine. But that sentence was abruptly cut off.

Soon the backdoor of the house was opened, and a man was marched out ahead of the business-end of Michel's Sten. There was a balled rag stuffed in their prisoner's mouth and he had his hands held at shoulder height.

Henri straightened up from his crouch next to the hedge and stepped closer, and the man began to make a noise behind the rag. He also tried to step backwards but Michel poked him with the Sten barrel.

"Now he's scared," Michel said. "They all know who Henri is."

And it was so quick, over so fast, that Andy only realized what had happened when the man sank to his knees and flopped onto his side. Henri calmly bent and tugged the rag out of the dying man's mouth and wiped blood from the needle-pointed blade of the SOE-issued dagger in his hand. He sheathed the dagger and folded his arms, and dispassionately watched the dying man for a while.

"He's taking a long time, this one," Henri rumbled quietly.

Far too long– Andy had a cold sweat running a trickle down her back. There was no thought in it, not exactly: her hands seemed to do everything without being told. The Sten was set to fire on Single and the safety was pushed off. She aimed at the writhing man's head and pulled the trigger, and the shot was no louder than a twig snapping.

"Next time, don't wait," Henri said. "Waiting can get other people killed, no? What if he had a gun, and we didn't notice until he shot one of us?"

The harsh edge to his tone stung Andy like a whip. In all this time, even when scolding her for some mistake in the vineyards or with the cows, Henri had always been gentle. But tonight she'd been given a lesson that she should never forget: Andy had thought to end the man's suffering, when what she should have been thinking of was the safety of their group.

"I'll remember," Andy said and made sure that the Sten's safety was on. "What now?"

"We drag him into the street and leave him there," Michel said.

"Cover us," Henri said.

Andy nodded, and settled in a spot in the deep shadow at the front of the house. She watched the street, occasionally turning her head to check on her friends' progress. The third time she checked, they beckoned to her and Andy left her spot, walking backwards for a while. She turned and followed the men down a hill and into the woods, all three moving at a steady jog for a full ten minutes before they slowed to a walk.

Michel offered his pack of smokes around and they paused for a moment, sharing the flame of a single match. They continued at a march, and Henri put a hand on the nape of Andy's neck and rubbed it.

"Tight," he said, and rubbed harder. Andy leaned into that massage, even as they walked, and Henri said, "We have the worst job, like cleaning a latrine while we are standing in it: we have to clean the filth from the inside out. We must. If we can break the _milice_ , then the _Boche_ must do their own violence against us."

"Then when we retaliate, our people won't hold it against us if the _Boche_ harm them," Michel said. "But while the _milice_ are still strong, we're stuck. So... So we go out and kill people in the dark... I have a little daughter, you know. She's in Portugal with her mother, my Louisa. I can't ever tell them about things like tonight, even though we _must_ do this."

"God damn this fucking war," Andy said through her teeth.

"Amen," Henri said very seriously indeed.

The two men refused the offer of a drink at the chateau and after seeing Andy almost to the kitchen door, they went off to Henri's cottage. Andy used her key twice, to unlock and lock up, and she counted the keys on the board near the door: Miranda's, Emily's, Nigel's, and the spare, and Andy's made five: all in. She picked up the bar and snugged it into its brackets.

She hung her coat from a hook and rounded the corner. It wasn't late, but it felt that way. Emily arrived in the kitchen just as Andy set her Sten on the table and sat down.

"Might as well stamp my name on it," Andy said, nodding at the submachine-gun. "Or don't mercy-kills count?"

"They count," Emily said. "And yes, best call her yours... All right, goose?"

"I got an idea that Henri stabbed that bastard a little less expertly than he might've, on purpose. I dunno how to feel about that."

"I can tell you how you should feel," Emily said, no-nonsense. "Grateful. My first _coup-de-grace_ was one of my own contacts. I know I wouldn't have hesitated as long as I did, if my first had been an enemy instead of a friend."

"Shit," Andy mumbled.

"But now you won't hesitate if it is a friend who needs that ticket out of this world," Emily said, her tone matter-of-fact. And what she said next made sense of that tone: "Just remember that the SS have bloody good surgeons who think nothing of patching someone up just so they can be tortured."

"I heard the camp guards talking about that."

"Right," Emily said. "Now, I know you don't want any, but dinner was damn nice and you should have some."

"I'll eat," Andy said. "I'm hungry. Go figure... Where's Miranda?"

"Reading, I suppose. Or she's nodded off."

Sometime later, after dinner and a wash, Andy found that Miranda had nodded off while reading. Andy picked up the book and smoothed a wrinkled page before slipping in an old leather bookmark. She set the book aside but refrained from taking Miranda's reading glasses off her nose. Andy sat on the edge of the bed, and smiled at Miranda when she woke. Miranda tugged on Andy's pajama sleeve.

"Get in here with me?"

"Dunno that I should," Andy whispered– if she'd tried for anything louder, it would've been a croak. To date, she hadn't wanted Miranda as much as she did now, so suddenly. "Wasn't expecting _this_."

"I know all about that," Miranda murmured. "You'd rather not think about what happened tonight, and I'm the first excuse to think and feel something else."

"Actually, I think the first excuse was dinner," Andy said wryly. "I shouldn't have been hungry, but..."

Miranda chuckled and Andy resisted the strongest urge she'd ever felt to kiss anyone.

"And you could be anyone..." Andy mumbled her thoughts aloud, shocked at that realization. "Not tonight, not like this, okay?"

"As I said, I know all about it," Miranda said, her tone gentle. "Goodnight, darling."

Andy nodded and stood up and smiled when Miranda caught her hand and squeezed it gently.

"There's a lot of hard work to do tomorrow," Miranda said.

"Good," Andy said and went to the door. "And hopefully no adventures after dark."

"Well, that depends on what you mean by 'adventures,'" said Miranda.

"I'm going to bed now," Andy squeaked.

"Goodnight," Miranda repeated lightly.

Andy went grumbling down the hall and demanded that God damn the war all over again.

Her expected aversion to food only arrived the next day, and Andy battled it away. She ate her breakfast, ate her lunch, and by dinner—after an afternoon of using a saw to prune not vines but apple and pear trees—Andy was genuinely hungry. She was smart enough to see how that worked: making sure to eat had overridden the emotional turmoil that had stolen her appetite.

The emotional turmoil itself was, however, no less. After dinner Andy went out into the cold and marched up the hill to Henri's cottage, hoping to find him alone. She knocked at his door and that door soon opened. Henri looked Andy up and down.

"You'd better have some kind of weapon," he rumbled.

"Pistol," Andy said.

"Good."

Henri ushered her inside his neat little home that smelled of pipe-smoke and leather oil, and also the stew he was cooking over the hearth. Andy abruptly felt a little bad for arriving unannounced– when Henri chose not to have dinner at the chateau he invariably wanted time to himself. Then again, there wasn't a telephone line up to this little place, and seeing as he hadn't pitched for dinner, she hadn't been able to ask if this visit was all right.

Henri didn't seem put out, though. He took up his pipe but offered Andy a cigarette, and he took a bottle off a shelf. With a small grin, he showed Andy the label: Johnnie Walker.

"It's supposed to be for after dinner, but we make our own rules, no?"

"Hell yes," Andy said.

Henri gave her the bottle and stepped to the hearth to give his dinner a stir. Andy splashed a little of the precious scotch into two glasses, and nudged a stool close to the old armchair near the hearth.

"You slept bad last night?" Henri asked and touched his glass to Andy's.

"No. Maybe it would be better if I had," she muttered and parked on the stool.

"I still feel like that, sometimes," Henri rumbled. After sipping his scotch, he switched to French and said, "I know what you think: maybe I was bad with the knife deliberately. But no, _chérie_. His jacket was a Russian one, a _vatnik_ – very thick."

"The blade didn't go in deep enough," Andy said.

"Into his lung, but not his heart," Henri said with a nod. "A padded jacket that thick? You must have shoulders like a bull to stab through it. I misjudged and didn't swing my arm hard enough... But what I said last night is true. I would've said it to Michel if he'd had the quiet Sten."

"Whoever's got it is the backup," Andy said.

" _Oui_ , and you... You're the right kind of person for backup," Henri said, looking her in the eye. "You'll die rather than let them get you again, no?"

"Yes," Andy said firmly.

"Then we're all safe with you," Henri rumbled and brushed his fingertips over Andy's cheek. "No-one with us knows better than you what will happen if we're captured, so you see clearly, like an owl sees through the night. You won't let those bastards get any of us either."

That truth hit hard. Andy felt it like being punched in the wind and for a moment she couldn't breathe. Her mind threw umpteen horrific scenarios at her: down to the wire, with any of her friends at risk of capture, Andy had no doubt that she'd kill them first and herself next.

"God help me..." Andy murmured.

"An American told me once that God helps those who help themselves," Henri said and got up to stir his stew. "That makes sense to me, even though that man meant what he said as an insult to all Frenchmen."

"Didya deck him?" Andy asked in English.

"What is 'deck'?"

"Knock him down."

"Oh. _Oui_. He took a long time to get up," Henri drawled and sat down again. "He was very nice, after that."

"Should think so," Andy chuckled. She was quiet a while and sipped the last of her scotch. She set the empty glass on a nearby table. "I hope I never have to do it, but I will if necessary."

"In that kind of corner, it's the only thing left that's right," Henri said. "But even I might think, _Maybe_... Maybe we can get away, maybe we'll be all right if they make us prisoners, maybe... You'll never think _Maybe_."

Andy shook her head No, she never would, not with the known risks involved. She'd told Miranda once that she refused to fail, and now that included this: she refused to fail her friends.

When she returned to the chateau, she found Emily and Nigel playing gin rummy, and Andy left them to their two-person game. She knocked softly at Miranda's door and was bid enter, and once inside Andy closed the door behind her. Miranda shot Andy a smile and marked her place in her book and took off her oval silver-rimmed spectacles.

"I like the way you look, wearing those," Andy said and sat on the bed.

"Really?" Miranda said, smirking.

"Yeah," Andy said.

She'd been wanting it since last night, but by now she wanted to kiss Miranda, and not just anyone. And it was easy to lean in and cover those soft lips with her own, to press and then ease back a little, and she smiled when Miranda followed with a press of her own. As Andy had thought she might, Miranda gently took over and confidently slipped her way into Andy's mouth. All their several chaste kisses seemed instantly burnt up, gone, and Andy felt something like white fire race its way from her scalp down her spine.

They took their time with that first kiss, which was more like a chain of kisses, one joining the next. Andy's sweater was somehow discarded, and she eventually became aware of the fact that she'd done away with a few of Miranda's pajama shirt buttons: Andy had forsaken Miranda's mouth in favor of kissing the inner curve of her breast.

"I don't even know what to do with you," Andy blurted.

"You're doing very well," Miranda chuckled. "You've driven me half-mad for you."

Andy felt her face flush in a fierce blush, and she scowled, annoyed at herself. Miranda ran her fingers through short hair and Andy pushed into that contact, like a cat.

"I think you still need some time, hmm?" Miranda said softly.

"I'm suddenly all shy and… stupid," Andy muttered.

"Tsk!" Miranda tutted. "Just shy and inexperienced, and in need of reminding that we needn't rush. You convinced me of that once, and now I don't mind reminding you."

"Even though I've driven ya half-mad?" Andy mumbled.

"I'm not a man, darling. Being aroused is glorious and nothing like an eventually-uncomfortable inconvenience."

"Oh," said Andy. "Right."

"Mmm," Miranda said and chuckled. "Come here and kiss me again?"

Andy didn't need any convincing on that score. That kiss was quieter, sweeter, more tender, and it made Andy want to cry. She broke the kiss eventually and buried her face in the pillow beside Miranda's head.

"I'm all up'n'down... mixed up," Andy said and swallowed a lump in her throat.

"I know," Miranda said softly. "What did you and Henri talk about?"

"Why I'm the best kinda backup. Krauts won't ever take me prisoner again, and I won't let 'em get any of you either."

"'Up and down' puts it mildly, then," Miranda said while rubbing Andy's back.

"I better get used to it," Andy said.

"I wish I could argue," Miranda said and kissed Andy's cheek.

~ ~ ~

Towards the end of January, Miranda rolled her eyes at yet another of Charles de Gaulle's exhortations, via Radio-Londres, for the French people to "rise up" against their German oppressors. Miranda had to wonder if General de Gaulle was being deliberately kept in the dark by the British, or if he was remaining deliberately delusional about the real situation in France.

Many people here were suffering from malnutrition to the extent where they barely had the strength to get out of a chair, let alone do so little as raise their voices against the occupying Germans. France's current visible adult population was around seventy percent female, and those men free of harassment were all over sixty-five. The majority of men under sixty-five had to remain in hiding or risk being grabbed either by the _milice_ or the Germans, and sent off to labor camps in Germany and other places. Those factors contributed greatly to a limit of just how much "rising up" the French could manage, but more to the point, the Germans answered overtly violent acts of resistance with ruthlessly violent reprisals. Recently they'd executed more than twenty French hostages in retaliation for railway sabotage north of Paris, even though not one German soldier had been harmed in those actions.

While that was bad news, it was also indicative of a certain fact: the German commanders had come at last to view any and every resistance action as a threat.

It was with that thought foremost in her mind that Miranda decided it was time to call a meeting with Ravitz of the OSS and his SOE counterpart, a man known only as Chapman. Chapman had never met Miranda before and he sent a message questioning the necessity of the proposed meeting. Via Emily and the radio, Miranda sent back: "We'll be asking people to put their lives and the lives of others at extreme risk." Chapman's almost immediate response was that Miranda should expect him in two days.

"I was starting to think that Chapman doesn't really exist," Andy said. "Not even Emily has met him."

"He sets a good example," said Jack Basson. "We learned much from him, without ever meeting him. In the beginning it was hard to make our people understand that we needed to keep our secrets in our pockets. In the beginning, many were caught and killed, or worse, they were turned into traitors who got other people killed. But no-one has ever even guessed where Chapman might be, or what he looks like, and the Germans know nothing at all of him—it may be that they don't even know he exists. He _isn't_ a ghost, and we all know that, and yet he might as well be a ghost. Yes, he's taught us much... Miranda, who will be allowed at this meeting?"

"You, Emily, myself, and Ravitz," Miranda said while cleaning her pistol. "Henri, James, and Andrea will head up security."

" _Me?_ " Andy mumbled.

"Yes, you," Emily said. "Pierre and Michel and all their men asked for you specifically. They like your brand of anger and that icy calm that seems to follow you around."

"That's just self-control," Andy said.

" _Just?_ Andy, there is nothing small about self-control," Jack said. "I was a good officer in the army because I remain calm, even under fire, and my men and other men all trusted me. The same is true now, for you. To have self-control means that you take some time to think, and only then do you act. Like you Americans say, that is a big deal, especially for fighters who might die if their leader panics."

"Agreed," Miranda said. She rapidly reassembled her pistol, and added, "But you're also known, already, for asking the opinions of others. We all use less TNT now because you came up with the idea of a single charge centered in a switch-track, but you weren't a maverick about that. You explained your theory and asked others if they thought it was worth a try. That gives people automatic leave to disagree with you, and they know you'll listen."

"Nothing else makes sense," Andy said. "But I still think I'm far too inexperienced to be in charge of anyone."

"So then you say so to Michel and Pierre," Jack said. "But don't be surprised if the one who takes command makes sure you stay near to him. In that way, you'll learn, you'll gain experience."

Andy's only response to that was a nod, and a few minutes later she kissed Miranda and went out with Nigel to meet with Henri and James. Out there in the dark were over two-hundred partisans and _Maquisards_ who'd come out of hiding, all heavily armed, all prepared to fight off any trouble that might present itself. When Ravitz arrived he reported with a genuinely pleased grin that his car had been stopped by thirty men, including one armed with a bazooka. They'd made him get out of the car and walk to the chateau.

"When's Chapman getting here?" Ravitz asked.

"Between nine-thirty and ten," Emily said and glanced at her watch. "And I doubt he'll arrive in a car. Rumor has it that when last he personally attended a meeting, he slipped right past several guards and climbed up the side of a building, and someone let him in by a window."

"Geez," Ravitz said, eyebrows arched above his glasses. "I sure hope he doesn't get shot– those boys out there mean business."

"Chapman has a pass-code," Miranda said. "And just for the record, there are more than forty women out there, too."

"You didn't look too closely at the person with that bazooka, did you?" Emily said.

"Natalie. She's one of mine," Jack said with a vast grin. "When she's not on rocket duty, her favorite weapon is a twelve gauge trench-gun, with a forty-centimeter sword-bayonet fixed."

"People tend to speak very nicely to Natalie," Miranda said lightly.

"I'll be sure to remember that," Ravitz mumbled. Then: "But what's gonna happen to women like that, after the war?"

"What a foolish question," Miranda said and rolled her eyes.

"What will _happen_ to you and me after the war, huh?" Jack said to Ravitz. "Natalie wants to help end this war so she can get married and have babies without worrying about them starving or being killed."

"And she likes a trench-gun because nothing is better at close quarters," Emily said with a shrug. "If I were taller, if I had more meat on my bones, I wager I'd have a certain fondness for shotguns, too. But with my slight frame, it always feels like the shotgun did more damage to me than it did to the other fellow. I mean, he's dead and can't feel a thing, while my shoulder's aching like billy-oh. That's hardly fair."

"If she heard something like that, my wife would faint clean away," Ravitz said, slowly shaking his head.

"Can't say that I'd think much of your wife," Miranda drawled.

"Do you always just say whatever's in your head?" Ravitz muttered.

"As long as it won't get me or anyone else killed? Yes," Miranda said. "It has to do with something you might've heard of at least once; it's called 'honesty.'"

Ravitz blinked and scowled, and Miranda chose not to look at either Emily or Jack, certain that their expressions would cause her to laugh.

At a little before ten p.m, there was a code-rap on one of the steel cellar doors: two raps, a rest, another two, a rest, and three raps. Emily and Miranda glanced at each other and Miranda went to the doors.

"That's Andy's code," Emily told Jack and Ravitz.

Miranda lifted the bar and cleared the top and bottom bolts, and pushed the door open a little, then all the way. Tomas gave someone a shove, and Andy gave the man another shove.

"Look what we caught. He's got the right pass-code but he seems a bit sloppy."

" _Oui_ ," Tomas said. "We were told this one's supposed to be a ghost."

"Some ghost," Andy said and gave the man another shove.

"Answer me this," the man said. "How many others did I get past before you two tripped me up while rudely pretending to be tussocks of grass?"

"You should watch where you're walking, Mac," Andy said with a grin.

"He should: it was _me_ that this _d'âne anglais_ stepped on," Tomas grumbled.

" _English donkey?_ I say, that's a tad harsh," their guest chuckled.

"No more harsh than your left boot," Tomas shot back.

"And he meant the clumsy dunce kinda donkey," Andy said. "C'mon, Tomas. Maybe a Kraut will step on us next."

"And we can shoot him in revenge," Tomas said.

Andy and Tomas jogged away and the guest shook his head.

"Tomas bears grudges well, does he?"

"Quite well, yes," Miranda said, amused.

Miranda ushered the guest into the cellar and had his help to bar the doors. In better light it was clear that his rather young-sounding voice belied his age– he was at least fifty, and his sandy brown hair was shot through with strands of grey, though not enough to say of his hair that it was pepper-and-salt. Miranda guessed that just two or three years ago, he'd had no greys at all. Instead of brandy he accepted a glass of wine.

"Cigar?" Miranda offered, pointing at the box.

"I think Mister Chapman still doesn't smoke," Emily said.

"Now how did you know that?" Chapman asked.

"Oh, I've a good memory," Emily said. "I was eleven or perhaps twelve when last we met."

"Those dark blue eyes are rather familiar."

"They're a match for my mother's."

"She has auburn hair?"

"Yes."

"And you met me at a wedding?" Chapman said.

"Yes."

"Now I know whose daughter you are. I must ask, do your parents know what you're up to?"

"Only as much as they need to know," Emily said with a wry laugh. "Dad would be pleased as punch to know more, but Mum would have a fit, and that in combination might just be a recipe for divorce."

"Tell them only when the war is over," Jack said.

"What he said," Ravitz agreed.

"Well, not all of it," Emily said. "There are bits battened down by the Official Secrets Act, like this meeting, I suspect."

"Seeing as I intend to retire after the war, if I live as long, the OSA will not apply to our having met during this war," Chapman said. "Though what we talk about may well be battened down, as you say... And what are we talking about?"

"What I need in order to start hitting the Germans harder," Miranda said.

"I'm listening," Chapman said.

"Before all else, I need to be able to help more of the local population," Miranda said. "That means we need more airdrops of foodstuffs and medicines."

"Yours, in any quantity needed. Any objections, Major Ravitz?"

"No, sir," Ravitz said. "But I've been offering those things for a while."

"As have we," Chapman said. "But we've also been in agreement with Miranda, regarding the additional risks involved in distribution of those goods."

"If our people are caught, they _will_ be shot," Jack said to Ravitz.

"I understand that," Ravitz said. "But like I always say, if you don't roll the dice, you can't win."

"I'm well-aware," Miranda said. "But I saw no reason to gamble with the lives of our people while we could win by making sure that we didn't purposefully harm or kill German soldiers. That time is past, and so now we have to gamble with those lives, in several ways... Beyond medicines and food, I need explosives, a lot of explosives."

"This is music to my ears," Ravitz chuckled.

"A veritable symphony," Chapman said, nodding. "Do you know that your switch-track sabotage idea has been adopted all over France and beyond? It's slowed the Germans down here quite well, but in Italy and Poland it's almost crippled Gerry. As fast as they repair the switch, it gets blown up again. Just be aware that they're going to start posting guards at switches here."

"Then we'll kill them," Miranda said coldly. "They wanted this damned war, and now they can have it. But as I said, I need to gain more civilian support first."

"We're agreed there," Chapman said. "What else will you need?"

"More of those suppressed Stens," Miranda said. "We have fifteen, one permanently assigned. I'll want at least fifty more, and as many suppressor service kits as possible."

"If it came from me," Emily said. "That requisition would be denied."

"It would, yes, but I'll see that it's prioritized," Chapman said. "Given the first part of Miranda's operation involves... public relations, we'll have time to gather those special-purpose weapons and kits. Anything else?"

"Jack?" Miranda said.

"Everything the same, except for the quiet Stens," Jack said. "Just send us the normal ones, and a lot of ammunition. As usual, we'll share everything with _Ceux de la Résistance_ and _Francs-tireurs_. When you give anything to those two groups, they make sure it's used to make the _Boche_ pay very high prices."

"What about supplies for the active partisans in your areas in general?" Ravitz asked.

"By supplying civilians with food and medicines, word will reach the other groups that Jack and I can organize supplies of other things," Miranda said. "Beyond direct supply, _Ceux de la Résistance_ manages several arms and supply depots, and they are always sure to give credit where it's due."

"It's just that way," Jack said, nodding. "If someone gets a gun or anything else from them, and it first came from you, through the two of us, then CDLR will make sure that the person knows those details. That's part of their propaganda, you see."

"They're apolitical," Emily said. "'People not parties' and 'Everyone helps everyone else' are maxims that CDLR pushes ruddy hard. They don't care what anyone believes. Resistance is their sole focus, and if you're resisting the Occupation, you're on CDLR's side."

"Just wish there weren't so many damn communists here..." Ravitz muttered.

"If not for those communists, including Stalin's millions of men, we'd all be on the losing side of this war," Miranda stated.

"Succinctly put," Chapman said. "Back to the issue at hand... We'll concentrate our airdrops over your areas only?"

"For the present, we both operate in areas that are hardly ever patrolled by the Germans," Miranda said. "Both of those areas are large enough to accommodate even the worst wind during airdrops. Heavy airdrop canisters won't be blown off-course so much as a little off-target."

"I agree," Emily said. "Whatever you drop over our heads always lands somewhere that we can gather it in without risk. But the point here is this: if we're distributing both humanitarian supplies and weapons and explosives, either directly or through CDLR, there's a bloody good chance that it'll be quite some time before Gerry realizes that Jack and Miranda represent two hubs of operation."

"And they may never realize that," Jack said. "When the local people are in support of someone, their first and most powerful, most useful method of support is silence."

"And if Miranda and Jack are helping to supply other groups of partisans and _Maquis_ ," Emily said. "Then we'll be gaining the silence of a lot more people than those who are already supportive. If we broaden that network of silence, we effectively increase our range of targets."

"Go anywhere, hit anything or anyone," Miranda said. "And if we're making it possible for other groups to do the same, the Germans and the _Vichyste_ can't say for certain who's responsible."

"I guess they don't call her the Vixen for nothing," Ravitz said to Chapman.

"Crafty, yes," Chapman said with a smirk. "And I'll just open this door: whatever you want, Miranda, it's yours. I'll see to it that your requests are all automatically marked 'Highest Priority.' I'll trust you not to ask for... unusual things."

"I'll be taxing the Germans, when it comes to all things _unusual_ ," Miranda said.

"I think my life's about to become even more interesting," Emily drawled.

"Good luck," Chapman chuckled.

Chapman took his leave at around eleven-thirty, after politely refusing a bed for the night. He just walked away into the night, and Miranda stopped herself from wondering where he was based. She told herself not to think of Chapman at all, until his help was needed again. That was best, considering the current realities of possible capture and torture.

Like Jack, Ravitz didn't refuse that offer of a bed, even when told that the bed in question would be a military-style cot. Ravitz stated in a matter-of-fact way that just as he'd taken a twisty-turny roundabout route to get here, he'd be taking a similar way home, and it would be best to navigate that route while wide awake. Miranda didn't argue with that, but she wondered about Andy's possible reaction to Ravitz's overnight presence in her home. Wondering led to Miranda biting her tongue to keep from smirking: Andy's reaction might be amusing.

Jack had gone out to see Henri, but Ravitz was sitting at the kitchen table when Andy and Nigel arrived. Andy had taken to wearing a flat-cap when outdoors and sometimes left it on indoors, which Miranda didn't mind in the least. The cap suited Andy in a way that made her even more appealing, made her face seem impish, and even more so when she wore _that_ grin.

"Oh, poor Ravitz," said Emily.

"I'll be good if he behaves himself," Andy said and slung her Sten from a chair-back.

"I'll try," Ravitz said. He eyed the Sten and said, "So that's the silenced version."

" _Silenced?_ Uh-uh," Andy said.

"'Suppressed' is the right word. It still makes a noise," Nigel said.

"Oh," Ravitz said. "How much?"

Andy opened a drawer and took out a wooden spoon, and she rapped it on the table several times, harder or softer, and eventually repeated a few taps at the same pressure.

"Like that," Andy said and rapped the table twice more. "Yeah, no louder than that."

"That's freakishly quiet," Ravitz said.

"Real quiet," Andy said, nodding. She put the spoon away and poured herself a brandy double, saying, "I fired two-thirds of a magazine less than two-hundred yards from that door, and no-one here heard a thing. I bet ya couldn't hear that Sten from even twenty yards away."

"I'm counting on it," Miranda said.

"Should I ask about that?" Ravitz said.

"No," Miranda said.

"Fine," Ravitz said. He looked at Nigel and asked, "So what do you do?"

"I'm the sewing machine mechanic," Nigel said. "Turns out I'm not half bad as a gunsmith. I spend most days adding a better safety mechanism to Stens, the original Mark Two. The newer ones are good as-is, but those first Mark Twos... Horrible."

"Drop the bloody things and they can go off at full auto," Emily said. "But Nigel's little safety gizmo works a treat. I'm told the Mark Three has a better safety. I still say they should copy the safety on the MP-Forty."

"How does that one work?" Ravitz said.

"The bolt-handle can be pushed through the bolt, into one of two slots, and that locks the bolt in place."

"Simple and extremely effective," Miranda said.

"I'd need a milling machine to wrangle something like that," Nigel said.

"A milling machine and a better power source than a generator," Andy said.

"I noticed the lamplight," Ravitz said dryly. "Was there a power-line to this place before the war?"

"No," Miranda said. "I had planned to get a line, and I'd made inquiries into the process, but I'm glad that I didn't get further than that. My line would've been routed through a village two miles away, and they haven't had power at all for nearly a year."

"In Paris we had no power for three full days last week," Ravitz said. "The grapevine had it that there was no coal at all. A train eventually got through with coal, and the power was restored... Guess that means you folks missed a switch-track."

"Bugger..." Emily muttered theatrically. "We'll have to step things up."

"We'll be doing that soon enough," Miranda said.

"Yeah?" Andy said.

"Mmm," Miranda said, nodding. "It's time."

~ ~ ~

Andy shoved the left lever forward and pulled the right back a little, and the small bulldozer she was driving dutifully turned to the right. She grinned broadly and evened out the levers again to keep the dozer heading in the direction she'd told it to.

"Ver' good!" her ancient instructor told her. He was standing next to her, holding on for dear life. Even with the dozer's tracks, this trip over a tilled field of almost-frozen earth was nothing like a smooth ride. "Now change the gear down!"

Andy let go of the steering levers, shoved in the clutch with both feet (it was too heavy to use just one leg), and she wrestled the gear lever back one notch. She eased out the clutch and the dozer slowed down.

" _Magnifique!_ You are a natural! Now go up the hill, back to my house!"

"Okay!" Andy hollered.

She had no idea why she'd been sent to get bulldozer driving lessons, but they'd been a lot of fun. When she'd parked the dozer, she thanked her instructor and set off down the road at what might've been a brisk walk, except for the fact that all that jolting around for the last ninety-or-so minutes had left her legs feeling a little shaky, and thanks to the metal seat on the dozer her ass felt like it had been kicked severally. Her butt would probably still be sore tomorrow, but her legs were less shaky by the time Nigel came along in the Renault.

"Woulda been no trouble to go up the hill," he said when she'd climbed in the car. "You didn't have to hoof it."

"Turns out I needed it," Andy said. "That dozer kinda rattled my joints loose, or something... And dozer driving lessons? What the hell is Miranda up to?"

"By now you should know what she's like," Nigel drawled. "And you have more chance of finding out what she's up to than I have."

"Don't go there," Andy giggled. "Cos I really don't have a better chance. You're right: I do know what she's like... Airdrop tonight, right?"

"Yup, five tons of supplies, so we're all gonna be short on sleep, but at least all the first pruning is done and we can take it easy tomorrow."

Andy had been involved in the collection of one airdrop so far, and it had involved just a few cases of guns and ammunition. Tonight's airdrop required the loan of four lorries in addition to Miranda's truck, but the vehicles couldn't approach most of the drop canisters: they had to be found, broken open, and their contents had to be carried to the trucks. Given the sheer amount of goods, word had to be sent out and more people arrived to help. The sun had started to rise by the time the last of the goods was locked away in an unused cellar. By then everyone was exhausted, but also wide awake.

Miranda told Henri to go out and choose a young wether, and before long a good many tired-but- _awake_ people were being tantalized by the scent of hunks of mutton roasting over open flames. Word was sent out to several women and by the time the meat was ready, there was bread for everyone as well. It was simple food, but to Andy it tasted like the best thing in all the world. And there was desert: Miranda handed out US Army Field Ration D, better known as those damn Hershey's Bars that had been dropped halfway down a gorge.

"We earned them," Miranda muttered and had a nibble of chocolate.

"Too blinkin' right," Emily agreed and blew up at her bangs. She nudged Andy and said, "I think your idea's a good one, about having some horses on standby."

"Yeah, but my original idea's changed," Andy said. "Now I'm thinking we could just harness the horses to the canisters and drag those fuckin' things where we can load the stuff into trucks."

"Horses: check," Miranda drawled. And: "I feel a good deal older than forty-eight."

Andy wanted to say that she should be the judge of that, but as had often become the case in the last month or so, she refrained from verbal flirtations when there were witnesses. Andy didn't mind what Emily knew, and Miranda felt the same way, but Andy felt a strange kind of selfishness where her growing feelings for Miranda were concerned. Much of that had to do with the occasional flutter of confusion Andy felt: she and Miranda hadn't progressed beyond kisses and almost-innocent fondling, and Andy didn't really know why she was holding back. It made little sense when, at times, all she wanted was skin and heat, or that roaring in her ears that Miranda often managed with barely more than a look and a certain smile. It made little sense, and yet Andy held back and, as she had after that first kiss, she abruptly became shy and annoyed with herself. Miranda was always patient, ever gentle, told her to take her time, and Andy responded to that and quieted, until the next time.

"I dunno why," Andy said quietly when they were alone, after it had happened yet again.

"Tell me what else you feel," Miranda said. "Not the physical things, and not what you're feeling now—I know you're confused. But what else?"

"I... I was gonna say that I can't describe it," Andy said. "But I can. It's like wanting to swear and cuss but the company makes that impossible, only in this case it's... I don't have the words; I don't... I can't even begin. I'm here with you, to whom I can say anything, and I still can't say why the _fuck_ I'm holding back."

"You misunderstood, darling," Miranda said. "You once mentioned honor, and you're the sort of person who's serious about things like that, perhaps to the point where if you don't feel enough emotionally, you won't allow the physical side of things to progress."

Andy frowned and felt her chest squeeze in around her heart. Before she could say anything, Miranda said:

"One question, and your answer may help things along in one of two ways. How would you feel if I called this off?"

"Would break my heart," Andy answered without hesitation, and her vision blurred with tears. "Just... Just the thought of that hurts."

Miranda leaned in and kissed Andy gently. They were lying facing each other, and Andy wriggled closer and a little lower down the bed, and she snugged her face against Miranda's throat.

"More and more often I wake up thinking about you," Andy said.

"And that's something that needs a little time," Miranda said. "That's all right."

Andy tipped her head back and kissed Miranda's chin.

"What about you?"

"Oh, I'm well on my way to falling for you," Miranda whispered, and Andy's heart skipped several beats. Miranda smiled at her, kissed her for a while, and said, "Even without the help of that three-piece suit, I'd probably be in this same place... I can be myself with you; I can let you in; I trust you. How could I not fall for you, hmm?"

Andy's response was to tighten her arm around Miranda, to pull her closer, and she laughed quietly when Miranda purred her approval.

"I'll tell anyone that I'm your girl," Andy said. "But I didn't think of you as mine, till now."

"All yours," Miranda said, smiling. "Will you stay with me?"

"Don't wanna be anywhere else," Andy said firmly.

Miranda murmured her approval and nudged Andy onto her back, and settled into her side with an arm and a leg over Andy's waist and hips. Andy curled an arm around Miranda's shoulders, and she lay awake for quite some time after Miranda fell asleep.

Andy tried to recall what it had been like to fall in love with Nate, and most of her memories involved a flightiness that was distinctly absent where Miranda was concerned. Miranda had made mention of 'lovesick schoolgirls' once, and Andy admitted to herself that she'd been a giddy mess for Nate. She'd also been just twenty-three and this war had been only a rumored possibility. No-one back in the States had given it any serious thought except, perhaps, for politicians, and Andy, Nate, Lily, and Doug certainly hadn't given their trip to Europe as much thought as they might've, as they should've. Andy and Lily had been planning that trip for two years, and Doug had jumped aboard perhaps four months before Andy had met Nate. As it had turned out, Nate had had his own plans to come to Europe. To Andy that had seemed like theirs was a match almost fated, something meant-to-be, and her mother had even suggested that maybe Nate was Andy's _bashert_ , a Yiddish term for a predestined mate. Andy had entertained that thought herself, especially during that giddy-headed blush of new love.

Now four, almost five years later, here she was with someone else.

Nate had accused her of changing, but most of what Andy had engaged in, and actively so, was adaptation through a more level-headed view of her circumstances. She had no doubt that even if she hadn't been grabbed by the Gestapo and trucked off to a concentration camp, she'd feel strongly that she had to _do_ something to help end this goddamn war. It wasn't hard to imagine François introducing her to Miranda, or to Jack, seeing as François knew them both. It wasn't hard for Andy to see herself fibbing grandly to Wehrmacht patrolmen about relatives in the country, and pedaling a bicycle to meet a resistance contact instead.

But Andy had been grabbed and sent off to Natzweiler, and she'd escaped, and that particular path had led her straight to Miranda.

And Andy was steadily falling in love with this forty-eight-year-old mother-of-two—two little girls whom Andy had never met, though without fail she found herself thinking of them several times a day. How not, given Miranda missed them so much that that ache could drive her almost to tears even when in company with the roughest and youngest of the local partisans. Andy had learned to read the lines of that longing– the tighter lines on Miranda's face, and the harder, stiffer lines of her back and shoulders. Whenever Andy sensed that longing, if she was able, if there was time, she'd initiate a little contact by finding Miranda's hand with her own or by leaning their shoulders together for a while. It was just a little thing, just a tiny bit of comfort. Andy knew that there was no remedy for that ache except for the day when the twins came home again.

That was a longed-for future of which Miranda never spoke, and of which Andy didn't think now. It was an unknown too far ahead, too ephemeral and almost too delicate to bear the weight of even a slight hope. Instead they both lived now, right now, and barely thought of next week let alone next month. Andy had figured out that that was why Miranda usually kept her various plans to herself, and said nothing until she needed more hands and more willpower than only her own to effect those plans.

Andy wondered if they'd ever get out of this habit of _now_. After the war—How did the song go...

 _When the lights go on again, all over the world_  
_And the boys are home again, all over the world_  
_And rain or snow is all_  
_That may fall from the skies above_  
_A kiss won't mean "Goodbye" but "Hello to love"_...

Andy and Miranda were saying " _Hello to love_ " even while air-raid sirens were blaring elsewhere, even while those boys were shipping off to fight. But if Andy was honest, she'd admit that her every kiss with Miranda held a "Goodbye." Like those men heading to various fronts, those here in Europe or in the Far East or in the Pacific, Andy and Miranda couldn't and did not bank on tomorrow. That bred an odd sort of patience: Miranda longed for her children but bided that longing without objection; Andy and Miranda were headed into what seemed to be a good relationship, but neither of them tried to classify it according to any norms but those that applied at present.

And not a goddamn thing was 'normal' right now. Or, better put, all kinds of things were perfectly normal for the present, but might one day cause Andy and Miranda and countless other people to say to each other, "Did we _really?_ "

Andy couldn't see that she'd be saying that about this relationship with Miranda, no matter what anyone else said about it. If there was a tomorrow with their names on it, plenty of people would have things to say, perhaps even the people who had, so far, not so much as twitched an eyebrow about it. Her parents might hate it, but this was the first time that Andy had considered them and she was certain that she mightn't give them another thought, in this particular regard.

There was a bone-deep truth to this relationship between two women: they fit like hand-in-glove, and that fit seemed only to become closer each day. To Andy's mind nothing better could be asked of life and love.

She had to wonder how many hundreds, perhaps thousands of people were out there searching in vain for their match among those who would never fit, and all because society insisted that opposites should attract. When last Andy had mistakenly tried to get her right hand into her left glove, she'd been landed with an uncomfortable jam. She knew already that at least one (though very likely many more than one) person would tell her that a similar jam and discomfort were the only things considered right and proper in love, and some might even tell her to accept the frostbite of a life lived alone.

That was all right. Andy needed no mental rehearsals of what she'd say in reply. Those who felt that they had the right to meddle would be informed immediately of Andy's right to say, "Fuck off." Her parents would be the only people for whom she'd temper that response; no-one else, not even her friends in Paris, had any right to expect anything else from Andy.

~ ~ ~

All through February and into March airdrops were made weekly, and supply missions were run from the chateau, and all after dark. A system was set up to get around checkpoints and bridges. The person transporting goods would get their vehicle off the road a mile from those places, and a small group of local people would take the goods to another small group. Chains of these groups would get the goods to someone else waiting on the other side of the bridge or checkpoint, and they'd drive off on their distribution mission.

The first effect of food and medicines on the local population was their general refusal to cooperate with the _milice_. That, added to the fact that _milice_ members were being rather regularly assassinated, was cause for those _Vichyste_ dogs to quake in their boots. In Miranda's area it was reported that fewer _milice_ were seen, and if they were seen at all they made sure to run in packs of upwards of fifteen men. Those packs were a problem. Miranda worried about the possibility of some poor harassed person trying to buy their life with information about where the new supplies were coming from.

"But if we clean up even one pack, then they will know for sure that we're the ones sending food and medicines," Henri said.

"But if we clean them up, Henri, that will add to their fear," Miranda said. "If the other groups even whisper their suspicions to the Germans and anything happens to me, what then?"

"Our first targets will be every member of the _milice_ , and they know this," Henri said. After a pause, he nodded his head, and said, "All right. I think I know where we can trap them."

"No prisoners," Miranda stated flatly.

" _Mais non, bien sûr_ ," Henri agreed: _but of course not_. "And I think you should come with us."

Miranda agreed without hesitation. Every damn side in the war was using propaganda as a weapon, and Miranda didn't see any reason not to use some of that herself. Her involvement in any raid would be remarked upon. No-one was saying where those drugs and foodstuffs were coming from, but they'd whisper about Miranda's direct involvement in a skirmish. The _milice_ feared her already; they'd fear her even more if they knew she might be gunning for them in person.

"They might all bugger off out of this area," Emily said. She added another dab of dark olive greasepaint to Miranda's face. "There. Right fierce, you look... Please don't get shot again, all right?"

"I'll try," Miranda said.

A vehicle rolled to a stop outside and Miranda went to the door without looking back, and she climbed into the cab of a truck with Henri and Arthur. Andy had left a half-hour ago with Michel and Tomas. Miranda chose not to think about her, and she was almost positive that Andy felt the same way.

The truck made its way along a dirt track to a proper road, one that led to a village at the head of a valley. That village was the end of the line– the road didn't extend beyond that point, and it was also far enough from any German base that gunfire wouldn't be heard. A trap had been set: Henri would supposedly be attending a small birthday party in the village, alone, and there was no way that the _milice_ would pass up the chance to kill Henri. The people in that village knew what would happen just a mile away, where the road led through thick woods, and they'd agreed to stay in their homes, and to tell people not to visit. Arthur was certain that the _milice_ would come along in a group and that they'd seek to get away quickly. A few of Miranda's people were scattering tire-puncturing caltrops in the road.

"Those spikes will do their job tonight: the _milice_ dogs must come this way," Arthur said while Henri parked the truck in the woods. "They will come in a few cars or one truck—maybe two trucks. With the spikes, their tires will blow out."

"And all we need do is wait," Miranda said. "Good luck."

Arthur wished her luck in return and walked off muttering about waiting being the worst part of any engagement. Miranda grunted agreement and took a position beside the road, behind a tree, and she cupped a hand around her lighter. It was still light enough that the glow of a cigarette wouldn't be especially noticeable, but that would change soon. Miranda considered this her last cigarette for the duration and made sure to enjoy it. That smoke had been stubbed out for a while before Henri arrived and leaned against a neighboring tree.

"Everyone is in position," he said and offered Miranda a hip flask. She took a little swig and when Henri had put the flask away, he said, "She doesn't like it, but I put Andy in charge of the people who will come up like a gate behind those bastards... There are too few like her, like you, and Emily, and me. We must all do our part, no?"

"I'm afraid so," Miranda said.

Henri left his spot behind the tree and without another word said, he jogged away. Miranda sat down in the leaf litter, and forced herself to stop wanting foolishly to countermand Henri's orders and allow Andy to play second fiddle to someone else. Henri was right, even though Andy would protest and call her calm demeanor little more than an act. What she had yet to realize was that that was so for everyone, even the most battle-tried of soldiers.

A shiver of fear ran down Miranda's spine, and her stomach was clenched on itself, and mostly for the fact that she'd already been shot twice and really did not want to be shot again. She scowled and checked for the fifth or sixth time that her spare magazines were properly filled. She'd probably check them again in twenty or so minutes, and yet again twenty minutes after that.

Miranda dug a pack of gum out of a pocket and unwrapped a stick. She generally detested chewing gum, likening that _chew-chew-chew_ to cows chewing their cud, but gum had its uses, especially during a seemingly endless wait for anything. Like a lot of small luxuries that made life seem a little better these days, that Wrigley's gum had fallen out of the sky. Things like money and gum and chocolate would never grow on trees, but if anyone complained in her hearing that their children thought that nice things fell out of the sky, Miranda would have to say, "Well, but sometimes they do, _and_ they get hung up in trees."

Miranda smirked at her silly joke and took note of the fact that it was almost full dark: she couldn't make out tree trunks further than thirty feet away. There'd be no moon tonight, and if she was one of the _milice_ she'd call that a perfect condition for an attack. But she'd also call it good a condition for an ambush.

She really doubted that anyone with the men on their way tonight had thought anything of the kind. Henri was hated and feared to the extent that the _milice_ had to be desperate to get rid of him, so desperate that they'd take many risks, and going out on a night perfect for an ambush would be one of those risks.

Miranda and her people had all been in position for a little more than two hours before the low grinding hum of a distant vehicle was heard. As the hum came closer, Miranda stood and pushed her Sten's safety off, and she reassessed:

"Two vehicles!" she called just loudly enough.

Answers came back softly and Miranda peeked around her tree: no headlights visible, but those trucks were going at a fair clip. _Perfect_ , she thought and glanced at the hardpack road strewn liberally with iron caltrops painted a dirty brown. She couldn't see those spikes at all, and without headlights the caltrops would throw no shadows: the drivers wouldn't see them either. Miranda made a brief check of her magazines again, and waited.

Both trucks came hurtling along, and both suffered tire blowouts at rather high speed. The lead truck careened off the road and smashed into the trees. The second half-spun and rolled, and the men in the bed were sent flying or were crushed under the truck.

Miranda aimed her Sten at the first man who struggled to his feet, and down he went again, permanently. The air was filled with the staccato rattle of Sten fire and the deeper bark of the odd captured German MP40, and someone yelled about men escaping into the woods. Miranda called an order for five people to remain and shoot anyone that had survived the wrecks in the road. After checking that her order had been obeyed, she ran across the road and joined what was essentially a manhunt.

A bullet zipped past her at shoulder height: some of the hunted were shooting back. They had to know that they were fighting for their lives, because every now and then Henri repeated his order of "No prisoners!"

They really couldn't take prisoners. They were partisans in an occupied country– who would they hand those prisoners over to? And they couldn't keep them under lock and key themselves. The _milice_ had written their own death warrants, by siding firmly with the enemy.

There was a muzzle flash up ahead, and like several others, Miranda fired at it. Someone over there gave a loud groan, and someone else up ahead yelled a name, but he got no answer. As many others did, Miranda kept moving forward and she fired short bursts in that direction: someone, perhaps the person who'd yelled, fired back. Miranda ducked, switched an empty mag for a full one, and returned fire. There was a shriek, then nothing, but Miranda didn't even think to go and check if her target was dead. She veered off to her right, following the sounds of gunfire further into the woods.

"Flank them!" Miranda hollered. "Move to flank on both sides!"

Several voices answered in the affirmative, and one of them was Andy's. Miranda chose to keep heading right and joined those people pushing up to take right flank positions. There was less gunfire now, and Miranda guessed that their targets were moving and stopping occasionally to harass their pursuers. _Fools_ , Miranda thought: they'd soon be overtaken that way. A proper fighting retreat involved some planning, so that the group was divided and those moving ahead constantly scouted good fire positions, then called for the rest to follow and leapfrog that position. Miranda was listening, but no such calls were coming from the men they pursued, and soon enough she and others were in a position to return fire.

"Careful– crossfire!" Miranda barked.

Her people on the left flank stopped shooting and moved back a little to change their angle before resuming, but not for long. Miranda soon called for the people nearest her to cease fire, and Henri and Andy did the same: silence. Henri said for two men to go ahead and check, and there was a short wait before a man yelled something about a _coup-de-grace_. The single pistol shot sounded exceptionally loud.

"All dead now!" he called.

"Flashlights. Check for anyone else," Henri ordered. "And we must make a count of the dead."

Those who had them took out flashlights and a skirmish line was formed, and they moved steadily towards the road. Some forty-five minutes later they reached the road and numbers were compared: eighteen dead men had been found in the woods; there were another eleven dead in the road.

"Twenty-nine. Fuck," Andy muttered. "There's only twenty of us here... Anyone hurt?"

"I have a burn," Arthur said.

A few others reported bullet-burns; only one was bad enough to be called a proper wound, and that man already had a dressing strapped to his arm.

There was a small wait while someone from the village was fetched, and in the meanwhile any reusable caltrops were collected from the road. Miranda left that to other people, and used a rag to wipe most of the greasepaint off of her face. When that old man from the village arrived, he gasped as soon as he laid eyes on Miranda. He stood a while, taking in her Sten and the holstered pistol on her belt

"You came yourself, and you fought, too?" he mumbled.

"It's not the first time, and make sure you talk about that," Miranda said.

The man blinked for a moment, then cracked a broad grin, and nodded.

"All right," he said. "I can tell lots of stories... You must go. I think the friends of these whoresons will come here soon, to see why they've not come home."

Miranda agreed, and she and her people made their way to hidden vehicles, and took various routes to their homes. As was usual after a skirmish, Miranda was not in the least talkative, and neither were Arthur and Henri. At the chateau Emily said not much after greeting them, and she poured them each brandy doubles. Andy arrived minutes later and poured her own drink. She corked the bottle and took a good-sized belt from her glass, grimacing at that hit of liquid fire.

"Fighting battles should be more complicated than that," Andy said.

"The only people who make killing complicated, are criminals," Emily said.

Miranda, Henri, and Arthur agreed with that, as did Nigel, who'd just walked in. He also got himself a drink, and pulled a stool up to the corner of the table.

"I got an idea the _milice_ are gonna clear out of this area," Nigel said.

"I think that if they don't," Arthur said. "They are stupid enough that they deserve to be shot."

"My mum says that stupid people were never born that way, they just act that way," Emily drawled. "Which is another way to say I agree with you, but I also agree with Nigel. Twenty-nine _milice_ killed in less than a half-hour? They'll bugger right off, I'm telling you."

"Your mouth to God's ears," Henri rumbled.

"Amen," Miranda said.

Others muttered the same thing, and Miranda looked at the clock. She suggested that everyone help with putting a meal together and no-one argued. Emily turned on the radio and tuned in to the BBC's _General Forces_ program, and pretty soon the cooking crew was looking less glum: the Andrews Sisters were irresistible, and especially so when singing _Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy_. Other music poured out of the chatterbox, and the volume was eventually cranked way up. When Glenn Miller's _American Patrol_ spilled into the kitchen, Miranda got dragged off to dance, and complained about trying to swing-dance in boots. She soon gave up that complaint because Andy could _dance_ , and the energy she put into it was infectious.

"I foresee the rug getting rolled up in the living room," Nigel said.

"Regularly!" Miranda agreed and laughed.

Andy's only response was a grin, but that was closely followed by spinning Miranda out and pulling her back in. That earned Andy a cheer from their small audience, and Miranda guessed that Andy might be surprised at herself, later. Miranda was almost positive that Andy had never taken the lead in a dance before tonight– she was a natural, a fact that Miranda appreciated in a decidedly physical way. Andy knew the signs by now and when the last note faded out, she gave Miranda a wink and a kiss on the cheek, and they rejoined the cooking crew. The men were clueless, and complained about no more dancing, saying that they'd been robbed of 'entertainment.' Poor Emily choked on a sip of wine and Miranda saved herself the same fate by putting down her glass, and thumping Emily on the back.

"You okay, Em?" Andy said oh-so-seriously. "That cough that's going around is real mean, I hear."

"Bit of wine went down the wrong pipe," Emily wheezed while glaring at Andy.

"Just checking," Andy said, straight-faced.

Emily turned her glare on Miranda, and her unspoken accusation was clear: _I blame you for this_. Miranda decided to be a good sport and offered Emily a look of genuine apology, in response to which Emily rolled her eyes.

The radio was turned down during dinner, and the mood changed. As Miranda had once told Andy, she knew all about it, as did everyone else at the dining table, by now even Andy. There'd been a momentary escape from reality helped along by music, but reality demanded the attention of memory.

"Can't help but think we killed husbands and fathers and sons and brothers," Andy blurted.

"We did," Nigel said. "But the choices those men made are what got them killed."

"Just the same: the choices we've made might get us killed," Henri said. "The risk is equal. Bullets don't care who they hit."

" _Oui, oui_ ," Arthur said, nodding his head. "When everyone's shooting, like Henri says, the risks are the same... And this is not a justification, _amie_ ; it's just a very sad fact."

"As sad as this one," Miranda said. "We didn't start this fight, but we're stuck with it."

"And frankly, I'd rather win it, or die trying," Emily said quietly. "The alternative is too horrible to contemplate."

Andy had looked at each person when they'd had their say, and she sat a while silent, her eyes on Emily, but unfocused. Miranda could almost read Andy's mind: she knew exactly what that horrible alternative was.

Someone else might've expected Andy to have joined all the dots by now, but that wasn't how it worked, especially not when someone's reason to fight was as personal as Andy's.

For now Andy was still fighting her own war, and Miranda knew better than to meddle. Over time Andy's _jus ad bellum_ would be continually broadened until, like everyone else at this table, Andy's reasons were many, and shared.

~ ~ ~


	4. Chapter 4

**_FOUR_ **

March thirteenth: Andy was kissed awake and she knew by the light in the room that she'd been left to sleep in. She hugged Miranda's neck and smiled at wishes for a happy birthday. Jeannette hurried Andy out of bed and led her to the kitchen, where Henri, Emily, Nigel, and Jeannette sang 'Happy Birthday to You.' When she got a break from hugs and kisses to both cheeks, Andy disbelieved what her nose was telling her.

"Pancakes and _maple syrup?_ " Andy mumbled and sat at the table.

"I arranged for it to fall out of the sky, then I hid it," Miranda said.

"But now it is not hidden," said Jeannette. "I will bake a cake later."

"I really like your birthday, Andy," Nigel chuckled.

"Me, too," Andy mumbled and had a mouthful of what heaven had to taste like. "Jeannette, you could win prizes with these things!"

"Let's see..." Henri said.

" _Oui_ , I taste, too," Jeannette said.

American-style pancakes soon vanished from two French plates as fast as they did from three American and a lone British plate, and Jeannette promptly got up to make more pancake batter.

"You never fixed them for your girls?" Andy asked Miranda.

"When I went back to the States during my pregnancy, I hated the food," Miranda said. "So pancakes, here, just didn't enter my mind until Emily wheedled that birthday wish out of you. But I think pancakes at weekends are something we can keep. Jeannette?"

" _Absolument!_ " Jeannette said.

"If I make it back to Blighty, I want that recipe," Emily said. "They're not quite crumpets and not quite hotcakes, and they're thicker than what we Brits call a pancake..."

Andy sat back and listened to Emily, Nigel, Miranda, and Jeannette discuss the differences in pancake styles. That included a small argument on the definition of 'flapjack' which in Britain was a kind of crumbly oat cookie, and nothing like a batter-based pancake. Andy's mind strayed off of that subject, and she found herself wondering how Lily, Nate, and Doug were doing. She guessed that today wouldn't be a good one for any of them. That thought stayed with her through a busy day, and though she tried to keep worry from her expression, Miranda noticed and asked about it.

"My friends think I'm dead, and today's my birthday," Andy said simply.

"Paris will turn into a battlefield, at some stage," Miranda said. "I've had it in mind to get your friends the hell out of there, but it's too soon for that. I'm sorry."

"No, I agree, it's too soon," Andy said. "Having new people here, now... Not a good idea."

Two days later, as soon as the sun had set, Andy and several others set out on a sabotage mission. As Chapman had warned, the Wehrmacht had stationed guards at a switch-track, but Andy and her crew quietly dropped those men with suppressed Stens. They made sure to screw the suppressors off of their weapons before rigging the tracks to blow.

"God help various civilians," Andy said quietly.

"Amen," her men said in chorus.

Andy twisted the plunger into the detonator and as soon as the TNT blew, she yanked the fuse-wire out of the box. She and her men jogged away in the dark, all of them grimly silent.

Andy and her crew had been one of several groups who'd dealt death and destruction that night. The theory was that if there were a lot of sabotage incidents, all on one night, then the Germans wouldn't try to enact reprisals for each one. Truth was, they didn't have enough manpower for that. But that was only a theory, and now came a waiting game, to see if that theory would bear weight.

Report of a single reprisal incident came in three days later: ten civilian hostages hanged.

" _Hanged?_ " Andy said to an old man.

" _Oui_ , for the... shockingness?"

"Shock-effect," Andy said.

"Shock-effect," he repeated. "Very much the shock-effect: awful, truly..."

"Wehrmacht men did this?" Miranda asked.

" _Non_. Fucking _Waffen-SS_ ," he said and spat on the ground. "They're called, uhh... _Das Reich_."

"That's the Second SS Panzer Division," Emily said. "But they're meant to be further south."

"I heard some of them talking," the man said. "They're patrolling and training new men."

"We need to keep an eye on those bastards," Emily said. "They're not under local command or local standing orders– they could come here. We'd need an awful lot of luck to win a fight against a whole bloody Panzer division and attendant grenadiers."

"And if we did, then the Wehrmacht would be forced to come here and finish us off," Miranda said. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn... All right. Emily, call a meeting tonight. We need to re-plan everything."

"Bloody hell..." Emily muttered and stalked off.

Andy wasn't at that meeting. She had to go and check on the possible night operations around and stemming from a Wehrmacht base forty kilometers away. That turned out to be a rather boring two hours: it seemed the Wehrmacht believed that darkness signaled that it was time to sleep. The only people Andy saw walking around at that base were those on guard duty, and they did more standing around near fires in old oil drums, than patrolling.

"One thing we can say," Michel said on their ride home. "Those fools don't worry about their eyes."

"Yeah," Andy said. "Standing close to the fire like that, when they look into the dark, they won't see a thing... We could use that."

"Yes, but I think that by now the idea to blow up radio transmitters has been changed."

The plan had indeed been changed, but only temporarily. James had been in contact with Christian Thompson, who'd said that _Das Reich_ was due in Vichy soon, and from Vichy the division would return to their base further south. That would leave only the local armor divisions, and they were all subject to the standing order that read: _Leave the Vixen severely alone_.

Once Christian had sent word that _Das Reich_ had arrived in Vichy, Miranda ordered sabotage missions against several major targets. Again these were coordinated attacks, and Jack Basson's people all struck on the same night as well, but so far away as to have left various German military commanders reeling. In one night, fourteen radio transmitters, one Freya-type and five Würzburg-type radar systems, an ammunition depot, and a very busy railway siding were all blown to smithereens.

On the same night Andy was involved in the operation's crowning glory. She and her men cleared a three-kilometer section of track of any Wehrmacht men, then set several charges. She didn't have a detonator tonight; instead there was a special detonator on the tracks near the end of the string of charges. When the train came along, Andy and her men held their breath: one of the locomotive's leading wheels hit the detonator and that blew the charges along a hundred meters of track. The shriek of buckling metal and the thunder of the derailing train almost drowned out the explosions, and as the rail-cars tumbled from the wrecked tracks, there were secondary explosions: crates of ammunition detonating in sympathy.

Everyone hugged the ground, lying as flat as possible, until all of the bangs had stopped.

" _Allons-y!_ " Andy yelled: _let's go!_

Hers weren't the only men who raced toward the train. Henri's men came along, as did a group with Miranda and another with Emily. Andy and her men focused on the third rail-car which nearly always contained a radio: the car lay on its side and one door had been blown off. Andy pulled the pin on an American pineapple grenade and she tossed it into the car; several of her men did the same, and they ran like hell: _Boom!_ and that was goodbye to the radio and to any surviving radio operators.

Shots rang out every now and then, and Andy knew that those were all mercy-kills. She and her crew had used enough TNT that no-one on that train could've survived unharmed. The secondary explosions of munitions would've killed German soldiers as well.

Andy walked along the ruined train and counted the bent and blasted barrels of fifty 88mm cannons; some were Flak 37 anti-aircraft guns and others were Pak 43 antitank guns. Michel and the rest of Andy's men thumped her on the back, because those cannons couldn't be used for any reason now. Radio transmitters and even radar units could be quite easily replaced, but Germany was starting to feel a hard pinch: given the price and scarcity of raw materials, destroyed armaments were outrageously expensive to replace.

"Fixing a hundred meters of track is going to hurt, too," Nigel said much later.

"Yeah, that line's fucked until they can get enough track to fix it," Andy said. "Makes me think: maybe we should ignore switch-tracks for a while, and just blow longish sections of track."

"In places where there are few or even no guards at all... You've got my vote," Emily said.

"And mine," Miranda said. "After all, we're not short on TNT, and I can get more."

"After tonight," Nigel drawled. "I think Ravitz might be tempted to build you a TNT factory."

Of course their actions were not without consequences. Several villages within thirty kilometers of the chateau reported that a few people had been arrested, pronounced hostages by the Germans, and shot. The only thing out of the ordinary, locally, was the lack of _milice_ involvement, but Emily got word from Jack and other people to say that the _milice_ had been heavily involved in reprisals further away.

Miranda divided her team's focus yet again: Henri and Emily would start to mount operations against the _milice_ further from the chateau, and Andy and Pierre would continue with railway sabotage. Miranda and her network of drivers and other people would keep up with the distribution of food and medicines. As a result, there were few evenings when everyone was together, and inevitably when they were it was after an airdrop.

"Gotta say I prefer blowing up railway lines," Andy said and flopped into a chair. "How many tons were dropped tonight?"

"Ten," Miranda said lightly.

"God's nightie..." Emily groaned.

"If you know how much will be dropped, never say, all right?" Henri grouched.

"I woke up earlier than you did," Miranda said.

"What?" Henri said, frowning.

"She's way ahead of you," Nigel explained. "She decided a while back not to say how many damn tons of stuff we'll have to haul in the dark... At least the horses are a help."

"But they can't hoist the bloody stuff onto the lorries," Emily said. "Nor are they much help getting everything packed away in the cellar... We need more people."

"I'll speak to Arthur. He'll find more," Henri said, rubbing his back. "See you all tomorrow. I want my bed..."

Before he left, Miranda gave him a bar of chocolate, and she handed out more of that at the table. Andy wryly thought that consumption of Field Ration D after hauling and lifting and packing things in the dark was becoming something of a tradition. By now it was the end of March and Andy couldn't remember how many times she'd hunted airdrop canisters scattered over rather rough terrain. A couple of weeks ago, the experience had been downright painful because everyone at the chateau had been involved in pruning the grapevines a second time. There'd be the usual early start tomorrow, to milk the cows, feed the chickens, and collect eggs, but after that Andy intended to loaf.

She wasn't the only one who took it easy that day. Miranda declared it a "midweek Sunday" and everyone was left to their own devices. It was a lovely day, and a little before lunchtime Miranda packed a picnic basket. She and Andy took the basket and a blanket for a stroll that was at first aimless, but eventually led to what was referred to as the top orchard. It wasn't a proper orchard, just a patch of ground on a hilltop that was home to a collection of various fruit trees that were left mostly untended.

"We only cut off damaged branches," Miranda said while she and Andy spread out the blanket. "I've no idea why these trees were planted here, but it might be, as Alain's father once said, that whoever planted them wanted to see which type of trees would do well. The cherry, apple, and pear are the only ones that produce anything worth eating as-is. The apricot, peach, plum, and greengage bear small, rather bitter fruit suitable only for canning. That's why I sometimes call this Jeannette's orchard. Oh, and the fig-tree eventually died."

"No bothering with figs here," Andy said and sat down.

"Sadly," Miranda said. "I love figs... Citrus doesn't do too well here either. Well, barring lemons. I'd have liked orange trees, but I'm told the soil's all wrong for them. I asked about adding things to the soil, but apparently it's not what's in the soil, but rather how it drains."

"Can't fix that," Andy said. She handed a piece of bread decked with brie and pear slices to Miranda, then said, "So what can grow here that you haven't got but want?"

"Olives. If I make it through this war, I'll buy another forty or fifty acres of land and put it under olive tree grafts."

"Green or those black ones?"

"Darling, all olives are both green and black," Miranda said with a chuckle. "The rule is, pick later for darker shades. So the green ones are green, as in, unripe, and the darker ones are riper than the green ones."

"So that's why the black ones are softer," Andy said.

"Mmm," Miranda said around a mouthful. "The variety I'd like is the common Turkish. It's about the easiest to grow and among the hardiest, so it's a good place to start, because I'll undoubtedly make mistakes."

"Best to get plants that'll forgive ya," Andy said with a grin.

"Exactly," Miranda chuckled.

Andy was about to change the subject, but her eye caught movement some distance away, down the hill, and she leaned up onto a knee for a better look. There it was again: movement in the vineyards. If it were any later in the year, the vines would've had more leaves, but today they were only blushed with green, and that allowed Andy to catch glimpses of _something_ moving down there.

"What is it?" Miranda asked.

"Something or someone is cutting across that vineyard. What's that? Twelve-A?"

"Yes..." Miranda said and stood. "If it's a boar it'll have to be shot before it roots up—No, it's a man."

"Yeah, I see him," Andy said, watching a man who was clearly stretching his back; it was probably stiff because he'd been ducking under all those guide-wires. "No-one's supposed to be there today."

"It's definitely not Alain: too tall."

"Let's go," Andy said.

She bent and picked up her Sten, and Miranda tarried only long enough to pack things away in the picnic basket. They jogged along the hedgerow planted most of the way up the hill. At the bottom they split up and Miranda sprinted off to get Henri.

Andy made a note of her bearings, thought about that man's general direction, and the direction he'd been walking in. She took a guess as to where he might end up: the chateau itself. A shiver went down Andy's back because good people generally didn't sneak up through the vineyards.

After making a check of her Sten, Andy set out to cut that man off. With all the ducking she had to do under the vines' guide-wires, it took a lot of concentration to keep heading in a straight line. When she thought that she'd gone far enough, she hunkered down and waited, listening. After several minutes she began to think that she'd gone too far, but as she was about to move her eyes picked up a little movement, to her right.

Andy eased down flat on the ground and spotted that man, who'd also dropped to his belly. He was leopard-crawling forward, slow and careful, and cradled across his forearms was a rifle. Andy pushed her Sten's safety off, and that man was soon stopped by a bullet that busted up the dirt only inches in front of him.

" _Keine Bewegung, Arschloch_ ," Andy said through her teeth: _don't move, asshole_.

The man showed Andy the palms of his hands and didn't twitch beyond that.

" _Braver Hund_ ," Andy snarled: _good dog_. She yelled: "I got him!"

"We're close!" Henri called back.

It didn't take long for Henri and several others to arrive. The rifle was taken from that man and he was searched– a pistol, a knife, binoculars, a camera, and various odds and ends were taken from him, including a little Bakelite tube.

"I know what's in there," Emily said. "L-pill, German variety. Rotten luck, Fritz, old chap: no suicide for you."

'Fritz' said nothing. He hadn't said a word at all, and Andy had an idea that they weren't going to get anything out of him. Andy had also begun to think that perhaps he wasn't German, but Henri ripped off the man's left sleeve and there was his blood-type, tattooed high on the inside of the arm, near his armpit.

"He's SS," Henri growled.

"Sonuvabitch..." Nigel said, shaking his head.

" _Dummkopf_ ," Andy said to their captive, while Nigel and Henri were tying his hands. She gestured at the bright sun. "You came here in broad daylight? Now lemme see, how do I say that you're even worse than just a knucklehead... _Du bist Schwachsinnig_."

'Fritz' paled and opened his mouth, but shut it again quickly.

"He doesn't like that. What did you say?" Henri said.

"That he's mentally deficient," Andy said.

'Fritz's expression changed again.

"Oh, look at that: he understands English," Emily said.

"I think we'll call him _Herr_ Idiot, whadya say?" Nigel said.

"My commanders are the idiots!" 'Fritz' blurted in excellent English.

"But you're the idiot who obeyed them," Miranda said lightly.

"No. That camera? I was going to take pictures of everything except you and then go back and say that you were not at home. You see, I was expressly ordered to kill you, but to harm no-one else."

"They're fucking crazy," Andy said, shaking her head.

"You can say that again," 'Fritz' muttered. He stood up as straight as possible, and said, "I must be honest and say that I was half-hoping to be caught. I have had enough of this senseless, _stupid_ war, and I formally surrender."

"There's a Lysander plane due here soon," Emily said. "They can take Fritz to Blighty, so we can accept his surrender instead of shooting him."

"Oh good. I'm kinda bored of shooting people," Andy said.

"Me, too," Henri rumbled.

"Same boat," Nigel said.

"All right," Miranda said. "Lock him up somewhere until we can put him on that plane. Andrea, I believe we deserted our picnic basket."

"Yeah, we did. See ya," Andy said.

As did Miranda, Andy walked away without looking back. She really didn't care what happened to old 'Fritz.' If he tried anything stupid, he'd be shot, and if he was a good boy, he'd be getting on that plane. Word was that the Brits treated POWs rather nicely: he'd be well fed and the worst he'd be subjected to would be farm work.

But of course, the arrival of 'Fritz' had rather much upset the applecart, as Emily would've said. Miranda and Andy finished their picnic lunch almost in silence, and both of them were a little skittish, their eyes snapping in the direction of the tiniest movement, their ears straining at the slightest sound.

"It's no good sitting out here, is it?" Miranda said eventually.

"Nope," Andy muttered.

They packed up the basket and folded the blanket, and strolled down to the chateau. They walked into the kitchen to find 'Fritz' at the table marking things on a map with a red wax pencil.

"I thought my order was to lock him up," Miranda said, her tone annoyed.

"Wait-wait," Nigel said and beckoned Miranda nearer. He pointed to the map, and said, "Gregor here knows all the radar positions in France, the _whole of France_."

"If you destroy the radar, then this war will end sooner," Gregor said flatly. "I have lost a brother and four cousins in this war. It's enough... I can mark here the transmitter positions also."

"Radio transmitters—yes!" Andy said and looked over Gregor's shoulder. She tapped the map and said, "That radar station's toast."

" _Toast?_ " Gregor mumbled.

"Toast, _kaput_ , it went _Kaboom!_ " Andy said.

"All right," Gregor said and marked the station with an X. "Toast: I'll remember... Do you remember _Oberleutnant_ Hertzog?"

"Sure," Andy said. "How is he?"

"They sent him to the Eastern Front and he was killed almost as soon as he arrived," Gregor said. "I'm sorry, but things like that should not be... buttered up?"

"Sugar-coated," Andy corrected in a mumble, and she sat heavily in a chair. "Shit. I really liked him."

"Didn't we all," Emily said quietly.

"So he told you what really happened here?" Miranda said.

"Sending an assassin here was one of von Tauplitz's crazy ideas," Gregor said. "But my crazy commanders decided to plan it properly. Johann Hertzog and I were friends, so yes, he told me. Then, of all the horrible luck, I was sent here, and he was sent to the Front... This war must be brought to an end, and if that requires me to be a traitor to the Reich, so be it."

"Y'know, I've found that in general, traitors don't try to save the lives of the people they're betraying," Nigel said.

"Quite the opposite, usually," Miranda said.

Gregor nodded and carried on marking the map, working methodically from left to right, north to south. When asked he explained that he had a photographic memory, and he also said that he'd purposefully kept that information under his hat.

"I never thought I'd land in the _Waffen_ -SS," Gregor said. "Like many others I was conscripted, last year."

"What were you doing before that?" Nigel asked.

"I'm a civil engineer, and for that reason I was initially passed over for conscription. I thought I would land in an engineers corps of some variety, but no, they put a rifle in my hands, and here I am."

"So you've been wearing a uniform for less than a year?" Emily said.

"No, but just a week more than a year," Gregor said. "If you're wondering why they sent me, so inexperienced, it's because I'm a very good shot."

"Only that?" Miranda said, blinking. "That spells 'desperation' to me."

"Correct, full marks," Gregor said with a humorless smile. "Make them more desperate, _Frau_ Priestly, because desperate people often make stupid mistakes."

"They do, indeed," Miranda said, her expression thoughtful.

Andy knew all about that expression. She looked at the marked-up map and focused on the area around the chateau, and noted that it lacked the same concentration of radio and radar stations present in other areas. Likewise, Jack Basson's area was not as densely marked with 'RT' for 'Radio Transmitter' and 'R' for 'Radar.' Pretty soon many other small resistance groups would be damaging or destroying things marked 'RT' and 'R,' of that Andy was certain.

Later Andy crawled into bed with Miranda, who read to the end of a paragraph before marking her place and setting the book aside. That was a first, and Andy liked it; she felt that it was representative of the fact that Miranda was becoming more comfortable with Andy's presence, more settled with Andy just arriving to share her bed. Once per week had turned into twice a week, then double that, and now it was rather odd for Andy to sleep alone. Last night she'd started off alone and had been restless. Aware of the squeaky springs on her bed and worried that they might wake Emily, Andy had lain still and awake until she'd told herself to quit being an idiot. Miranda had barely stirred when Andy had gotten into bed with her, but she'd mumbled her approval when Andy had snuggled up.

Last night she'd come here just to sleep, but tonight Andy had a fair bit on her mind.

"All right?" Miranda asked.

"Just thinking that fellas like Hertzog and Gregor make things complicated," Andy said. "Would be a lot simpler if everyone in whatever kinda German uniform was thoroughly rotten, but they aren't."

"I firmly suspect that Gregor would go down a notch or three in your estimation if you asked him what he thinks of Jews. Would that simplify things?"

"Probably," Andy said. "Thing is, when I'm shooting at Krauts or blowing 'em up, I don't ask questions first."

"Darling, when I first started doing this," Miranda said. "My hardest lesson is the one you haven't had to learn: you know already that a delay to ask questions is dangerous. I had to keep telling myself not to hesitate. Sometimes I wasn't immediately successful, and I nearly ended up dead, and other people nearly ended up dead. So what I'm saying here is this: don't try to unlearn what works."

"By every moral standard, I _should_ unlearn what works," Andy muttered.

"Morals are the luxury of peacetime," Miranda almost whispered.

"No. No, that's bullshit," Andy said angrily and lit a cigarette. She blew smoke at the ceiling, and said, "What are your standing orders, huh? We _still_ only kill Krauts if we have to."

"But my standing orders regarding the _milice_ are shoot-on-sight," Miranda said, her tone even and calm. "And my orders regarding German soldiers revolve around minimizing the chance of German reprisals against French civilians. Moreover, those orders stand only until we get the help of Allied soldiers. After that? The only safe German soldiers will be those who approach waving a white flag of surrender. I say again: morals are the luxury of peacetime."

"Not quite, seeing as you'll accept that white flag," Andy said.

"Andrea, I'll accept the surrender of men in uniform, but I will never take any _milice_ men as prisoners, even when I can hand them on to people who can lock them up. Those who accept the surrender of traitors, are all fools. Never forget that on paper, I am French, and my duty to this country is to resist the Occupation and to destroy the _Vichyste_ wherever I find them. They'll have no quarter from me... And I'll put you on-the-spot: would any Gestapo member, any of the guards at that damned camp get any quarter from you?"

"No," Andy said, the simple truth.

"And for the same reason, really," Miranda said. "Gregor might hate Jews, for all we know, but we also know that he has some measure of honor. Anyone good would kill themselves, if assigned to the Gestapo; anyone good would kill themselves if assigned as a guard to one of those camps: to be an active member of either group would be wholly unconscionable to anyone even remotely decent. You'd rather die, as would I, and I'm damned sure that Gregor would as well, even if he is prejudiced against Jews. He called himself a traitor, but even if we were German, you and I, would we?"

Andy shook her head, thinking of Hertzog, who couldn't have been any older than Andy herself. If Gregor had been in Hertzog's place, that day that von Tauplitz had arrived in the tank, Gregor would have done exactly as Hertzog had done: he'd have shot von Tauplitz dead. That was the only right thing, the only _moral_ thing to do.

"But we're still holding onto morals," Andy said. "Some of 'em. The way we treat our friends, the way we treat each other... If morals were really only a luxury of peacetime, you wouldn't care about Kraut reprisals. You'd call shot and hanged civilians acceptable, because we're hitting the Krauts where it hurts; you'd call all those victims of Allied bombing raids acceptable losses, too."

"Never acceptable," Miranda murmured.

"That's an answer that's dripping with morality," Andy said pointedly. "Argue that."

Miranda hesitated a moment, then shook her head. Her eyes were closed but tears leaked from them, and Andy gently pulled her into a hug. Miranda stifled a sob and Andy dared not tell her to let it go, not now: Andy's intuition told her that that was the sort of floodgate that, once opened, might not easily be closed again. A kiss was the right sort of distraction to offer now, and Andy did so. It wasn't an especially long or fiery kiss, and Andy guessed that Miranda had won her internal battle for control on all fronts, barring honesty:

"I worry about what my girls will say, one day, when they know all the truth."

"Miranda, this war..." Andy shook her head. "When a renowned pacifist like Bertrand Russell says that this war is the lesser of two evils, ya gotta know, we're living in the world's darkest days. And the days couldn't be darker for all of us, for all Jews. I mean, it hasn't been this bad since Hadrian kicked us out of Jerusalem and we scattered across the world. That was nearly two-thousand years ago, and in less than four years Hitler's done the opposite, herding us by the thousands into killing camps... You talked about good people a few minutes ago. You're telling me that your daughters aren't good people?"

"I expect many good people, including Bertrand Russell, to call various actions in this war unjust and unacceptable." Miranda lit a cigarette and smoked it in silence a while. Eventually she said, "When I first came here France was a wreck, as was most of Europe. My thoughts constantly returned to, 'We cannot ever do this again.' And what will we call the Great War now that its destruction has been so heavily surpassed?"

" _Time_ magazine's been calling this one 'World War Two' since Nineteen-forty, I think," Andy said.

"Yes, I remember an article..." Miranda said. She tapped ash into the ashtray, and said, "Anyway, I fully expect some measure of 'How could you?' from my children, from all children that age, and younger. My girls... They're old enough to understand, and also old enough to question the necessity of what they understand. That covers this entire war but it'll be focused on everything that's closer to home, and if their mother had a finger on a trigger occasionally, then... Well, yes. I'm expecting 'How could you?' severally, and however many variations on that theme."

Andy nodded and realized for the first time that the children coming out of this war with wrecked childhoods would seek to blame adults for that, before realizing that they owed their futures to those adults. And would one argue? After all, they were right before they were wrong: not one child was to blame for the hell of this war and yet they were suffering, in whatever way, because of the damn war. Andy said as much and added:

"But they'll appreciate it, one day."

"They may; many may never," Miranda said. "And who are we to insist that those children were robbed of a parent or a home or both, for good cause? There are many such children who will grow into adults and say, always, 'The previous generation was reckless, and aren't I proof?' We might turn around and say to them, 'You've no appreciation for the horror of the possible alternatives.' They in turn will say again, 'There shouldn't have been a situation in which that war was permitted.' They'll be right yet again. We all saw the growing storm and most of us ignored the horizon in favor of merrily sailing our little personal dinghies—entire countries were guilty of that, darling. How many people decided that Nazism wasn't such a bad thing?"

"Well, as long as it stayed in Germany," Andy drawled. "But yeah, I know what you mean. Thing is, without declaring war on Germany before they'd done anything to deserve it, how would we have stomped on Nazism?"

"I often find myself wishing that I'd acted on my first instinct," Miranda said. "When I first heard one of Hitler's speeches on the radio, my skin prickled, everywhere, and I thought, 'He needs to meet with a bullet.' I'd never thought anything like it, not in all my life. It was shocking, but I knew it at once for truth: if anyone was deserving of an assassination, it was him— _is_ him. And would there even be such a thing as Nazism now, seven years later? Would we be fighting this war, if someone had had the fortitude to act on that instinct? I know without ever having to ask that hundreds, thousands shared that same instinct with me. But I can't point fingers, not while I'm one of those who didn't act."

It was a sign of recent experiences: Andy's mind had automatically begun to contemplate the logistics involved in mounting an assassination mission against a target several hundred kilometers away.

"Nightmare logistics involved in something like that," Andy said wryly.

Miranda snorted a laugh and Andy guessed that she'd been thinking along the same lines. Andy also guessed that the both of them would be stuck for a while with that sort of immediate mental leap, and neither of them would think much of getting something delivered to someone a few hundred kilometers away. After all, after the war, the postal system would kick back into being, and they wouldn't have to worry about finding trustworthy volunteers with roadworthy vehicles.

"And we won't be blowing up the railway lines either," Andy added.

"I suspect that even now there are some very loyal French postmasters who don't like us much at all," Miranda drawled.

"Oh brother, what a mess," Andy said, giggling. "Now I've got it in my head to volunteer to help fix all the stuff I've blown up, but only after we've kicked out the Krauts."

"That's an important condition, yes," said Miranda. "I may be forced to join you. We'll have to change our tune from _I've been blowing up the railroad_ to the original _I've been working on the railroad / All the livelong day_."

"To be real honest... I'm gonna miss making things go _BOOM!_ " Andy admitted. "I've gotten real good at it. Guess I'll have to find other things to excel at."

"I can think of a few things," Miranda said, smirking.

Andy snorted a laugh and kissed that smirk for a while. She'd learned to preempt her sudden stops and accompanying shyness, and she broke the kiss eventually and nuzzled at Miranda's neck.

"You certainly excel at kissing," Miranda murmured. "And I'm almost positive that you'll excel at making me explode, in a nondestructive way."

"Don't think I've heard quite that tone-of-voice before," Andy said quietly and kissed a pulse-point.

"Close to it, rather suddenly," Miranda said, her voice thick and rich.

"I wanna help with that," Andy said.

"You're sure?" Miranda asked.

Andy nodded and smiled at the quiet but rather joyful certainty that seemed to flood through her. And it was perfect, like this, with no measure of forethought, no weighing of pros and cons. Out-of-the-blue, spontaneous: wonderfully surprising but also bearing a definite trace of the inevitable. It all felt right, and that was a gift in itself, when everything else was so damn wrong.

~ ~ ~

Gregor's marked-up map was copied and sent, in pieces, all over France. Full copies had also been sent along with him to the SOE and to the OSS offices in London. He'd said that he didn't want any special treatment and Miranda had sent a letter along with him to that effect, but she had a feeling that it would be ignored, though possibly in a rather considerate way. The Brits had a knack for such things: Gregor would find himself working on a farm, just as many other German POWs were doing, but his job would likely involve a lot more responsibility than was assigned to the average POW. Miranda imagined that Gregor might be asked to help plan improvements or his help would be required for repairs; he'd be made to feel welcome and useful, and that was the sort of 'special treatment' that he wouldn't object to.

As for her own 'special treatment,' Miranda was often playfully accused of looking like a cat who'd been locked in a creamery. To be fair, Andy managed to look even more smug, and Miranda couldn't have been more pleased about _that_. She was only human and found herself drawing comparisons between Andy and her other lovers, and mostly because there was something very different about Miranda's attitude to this relationship. She had no idea if it would last, but for the first time she dared to hope that it would.

"I never felt that way about the others," Miranda said to Nigel one afternoon.

"Hope can be a cruel mistress," Nigel pointed out.

"I know, but I'll risk the gamble nonetheless," Miranda said. "I must, because I'm not getting any younger."

"I've noticed how the age-gap means nothing," Nigel said and passed Miranda a lit cigarette. "To me, that's the all-important condition: it's not in the least important; it's not even a consideration."

"It's only a consideration when she teases me about being _older and wiser_ ," Miranda drawled.

"And in whichever moment, you probably deserved that," said Nigel.

"Well, you know me," Miranda conceded.

"Yeah, I do," Nigel said and laughed. He cleared his throat and dared to say, "But I'm surprised that you're getting enough sleep."

"We have our priorities in order," Miranda said with a small shrug. "Anyway, it's rather easy to prioritize sleep over pleasure, when a lack of sleep might result in mistakes that can get one hurt or killed."

"Sobering thought," Nigel said.

"Very," Miranda said quietly.

That evening Andy kissed Miranda and went out to meet her crew, one that she'd recently hand-picked. Michel might've been a team-leader himself, but he'd agreed with Andy that she needed a second, someone to take over if necessary, or someone who could lead half of the crew if whichever plan called for a two-part action. Such was the case tonight: Michel and another man would be creating a diversion, and once various Wehrmacht men had responded to that small explosion, Andy and her three men would rig a radar unit to blow.

Miranda's evening was busy, too, packing various goods into sacks and tying them with twine. Those packages were loaded into vehicles that drove off into the dark. The sacks would be coming back empty, and Miranda had had to insist on that, or find something else as wrapping material. There were shortages of everything, and while people almost constantly dropped by with spare sacks, the distribution operation was forever broadening: more and more sacks were needed. By the time the last car drove off, there were only four spare sacks remaining in the pile.

Miranda locked the cellar doors and walked wearily to the house. She arrived at the backdoor just as Tomas' car halted, and Emily got out. Tomas leaned out the window and gave Miranda a wave as he drove off. She waved and had to smile at that grin of his: that was a face that would hold the expression of a naughty boy even in fifty years' time.

"Done for the night?" Emily asked.

"Yes, and with only four sacks to spare," Miranda said.

"Baker Street's been asked for stranger things, I'm sure," Emily chuckled and unlocked the kitchen door. "I'll put in a request for sacks, burlap, mark one. How many?"

"A couple-hundred, to be safe," Miranda said and adjusted the flame of the lantern she carried. "Damned thing keeps guttering..."

She was about to walk in after Emily, but Emily barred her way and also swung her Sten forward, at-the-ready. Miranda immediately drew her pistol.

"What is it?"

"I smell blood, and something else," Emily muttered.

"Yes, something dank..." Miranda said.

She held the lantern aloft, but behind Emily to save her eyes, and they walked into the kitchen.

"Fucking hell..." Emily murmured.

There, on the kitchen table, was a dead fox. Miranda's blood ran cold, at first, but only for a short while. She felt fury build and break into waves of anger.

"They're not here in the house anymore," she almost whispered. "But perhaps they're close enough to see this..."

Miranda strode to a dresser and from a drawer she took a pair of Very pistols. Emily followed her outside and stood by, quite relaxed, while Miranda fired first one and then the other flare into the night sky, one green and one red. She returned to the kitchen and fetched a trench-gun: two shots into the air, she waited ten seconds and fired three more shots.

Henri was the first to arrive, and Alain next, then came a veritable rush of anyone who'd seen or heard the signals, including those groups of partisans who'd been on their way back from sabotage missions. Andy was among them, and Nigel and James Holt were among those who'd arrived last. By then over two-hundred men and women, all armed to the teeth, were a swarm around the chateau.

Miranda climbed onto the low wall surrounding the kitchen herb garden.

"There's a dead fox in my kitchen," she said loudly in French. "By now whoever put it there is running. Spread out! Find them! Bring them back alive! Ten of you, search my house!"

Other people barked orders and little organizing was needed, because this sort of search had been run twice before, as a drill. Most of the crowd joined the hunt, but fifty people remained behind and ringed the house. The people inside soon reported that the fox carcass was the only thing unwelcome inside, but they'd found that a hardly-used side-door had had its lock jimmied. Miranda found a spare lock, a better one, and someone soon fixed the door. The poor fox, meanwhile, was given a burial, and Miranda and Emily got on with scrubbing the table after wetting it with a Clorox solution.

"This chunk of oak is due a proper bleaching anyway," Miranda said. "It can get an oiling tomorrow."

"Good old linseed oil... I'm rather surprised at Andy's reaction," Emily said. "I mean, she didn't go anywhere near you."

"She's come to know me. When there are things that must be done, those things must also come first."

"Right," Emily said. She scrubbed away for a while, then said, "This stunt reeks of the Gestapo."

"Doesn't it just?" Miranda said through her teeth.

"Oh, Lord-love-a-duck," Emily said with a laugh. "I know that tone-of-voice..."

"Did you honestly think I'd let this slide?"

"No, but the Gestapo—"

"Can die just as easily as any other bastard-swines," Miranda stated. "And some of them are going to die. They thought to _frighten_ me. Well, we'll just see who's afraid, come the end of this week."

"All right," Emily said simply.

Miranda nodded and calmed down a little, only a little. If she really aimed to turn the tables and put the fear of God and the Silver Vixen into the Gestapo, she'd need to hang onto more than fifty percent of the anger currently coursing through her veins.

"Ridiculous," she muttered. "Expecting _me_ to react like some fainting-daisy half-baked hysterical old woman..."

"Arrogant beyond words," Emily said, nodding.

When they were finished scrubbing, they dried the table with mutton cloth which was set to soak in a pail of clean bleach solution. Miranda lit a cigarette and went outside with Emily, who asked if any shouts or shots had been heard.

"Some over there," a woman said, pointing southeast. "No more than a minute ago."

"Shouts only, no shooting," a man said.

In due course there was some more shouting, and it became obvious that one group was letting others know that they'd caught someone. People gradually trickled back from their hunts, to wait on the arrival of the successful group. It was mentioned that everyone hereabouts knew better than to venture onto this property or too close at night, but that the person or persons caught could just be strangers. No-one argued with that theory, but it was soon tossed right out when Tomas came running in.

"They had these," he said, holding out his hand, palm-up: three of the Bakelite tubes known to hold German-issue suicide capsules. "One is opened, you see? One of them is dead already—coward!"

"The other two?" Miranda said.

"Black eyes, sore balls, but they can walk still," Tomas said with a shrug.

" _Vichyste_ or German?" Miranda asked.

"Nazi scum," Tomas said. "But the one who's dead, he looked French to me– his haircut, and his clothes looked like his, not borrowed. You know the signs."

Miranda nodded and said nothing else while she waited. The last group took another fifteen minutes to arrive, hampered by their prisoners and by having to carry the dead man. The body was dumped unceremoniously on the ground, and three of the four people who'd carried it spat on it. Miranda didn't like that at all, but she knew better than to scold people for doing the least of a long list of atrocious things.

The two prisoners had their hands tied behind their backs, and they'd been forced to their knees. Both were staring at the ground in front of them.

"Look at me," Miranda said in German.

First one and then the other raised his head. One had a broken nose and both eyes were blackening, and judging by the swelling, the other had a fractured cheekbone.

"Do I look scared, hmm?" Miranda asked.

Both men shook their heads. Miranda gestured for those people standing behind the two men to move, and they did so in a hurry, fully aware of what would come next. She drew her pistol, racked back the slide, pushed off the safety, and shot each man in the head so fast that the second had no chance to react.

"Load all three into the truck," Miranda said to Henri. "Drive to within five-hundred meters of the most heavily-guarded bridge south of here, and push the bodies off, into the road. Come straight back."

Henri rumbled a response and called a few men to help him. Miranda raised her voice and thanked everyone for their help. There was a fair amount of noise for a while: everyone telling her that she was welcome to that help. Miranda stood outside until the last of the crowd had left.

In the kitchen Miranda found Nigel wrapping a cold wet rag around Andy's right hand.

"She bust that Kraut's nose," Nigel said. "Your gal's got a helluva straight right."

"And how bad is that hand?" Miranda asked.

"It'll be all right in the morning. Just bruised; the knuckles are okay," Nigel said. He dried his hands and looked Miranda in the eye. "All right?"

"No, I feel rather ill," Miranda muttered and sat at the table.

"Tea?" Andy said.

Miranda nodded and Emily got busy with the kettle. Andy shared the cool rag around her hand, by resting it on the back of Miranda's neck. That helped with the nausea and chased the cold sweat.

"It's much better when they can shoot back," Miranda admitted.

"It is, yes," Emily said. "Or when they have no idea what's coming... Something tells me I'll be using Gregor's rifle quite often."

"I'd like to get my hands on more of those Gewehr Forty-threes," Miranda said.

"Especially the ones with the scopes," Andy said.

"I looked at that scope: it's the same as the one on the Kar-Ninety-eight," Nigel said.

"Well, then we'll bring back the ones without scopes, too," Andy said. "There's a box of Kar-Ninety-eight Zeiss scopes in the basement."

"We need to take inventory in there again," Miranda drawled. And to Emily: "Do you still have room to operate the radio?"

"Just enough," said Emily.

Henri walked in just as Emily was pouring the tea, and she offered to add more leaves and water to the pot, but he shook his head and helped himself to some brandy. He pulled up a stool and asked about the plan, clearly certain that there was one.

"No fewer than ten assassinations of Gestapo members," Miranda said. "For the rest, operations continue as normal."

"Good," Henri said. "We are properly at war now, no going back."

Everyone at the table muttered agreement, and Miranda remembered that she should clean her pistol. She put it on the table and went to fetch the cleaning kit, and when she returned she found Andy stripping the weapon to pieces and parts. Miranda used the brush to clean the barrel and Andy used a lightly oiled rag to look after the rest. When the pistol was reassembled, Henri picked it up and shook his head: the small gun just about disappeared in his meaty hand.

"They didn't make this one for me," he rumbled.

"Even the Colt Nineteen-eleven looks teeny in your hands," Andy pointed out.

"And my Webley Four-five-five, too, but it fits better," Henri said. "Ammunition for that one is a big problem."

"Even our lads have trouble getting it, and that point-Four-five-five is their duty issue," Emily said. She looked at a clock and said, "Chaps, it's silly-o'-clock, nearly four in the morning. Either we're going to bed, or we shouldn't bother. What's doing tomorrow night—I mean, _tonight?_ "

"Pierre and his men are the only ones going out," Miranda said.

"I say we don't go to sleep," Henri rumbled. "And instead we talk and talk, and cook a very big breakfast."

"That's a splendid idea," Miranda said. "I'll have some of that brandy in my tea, thank you... Andrea, how did you and your men fare tonight?"

"Oh. Fine," Andy said. "We made the radar go _BOOM!_ and no-one got hurt. But like Michel said, if we keep using the diversion tactic, the Krauts are gonna stop falling for it."

"Well, not if you keep changing it up," Nigel said. "Next time, instead of using an explosive diversion, start a fire. After that, find one of the fellas who has good German, and get him to yell, ' _Kameraden, hilf mir!_ ' Generally, anyone yelling for help _in German_ gets the Krauts running."

"It does," Emily agreed. "Let's make a list of possible diversions– useful thing to have."

Miranda readily agreed—perhaps too readily, and she schooled her expression while thinking about that. It didn't take her long to arrive at the realization that she was almost exhausted and wanted to go to bed about as much as she didn't want to go to sleep. She regularly had nightmares but she could usually wake herself up and snap out of them. The last time she'd executed someone, however, she'd had truly horrific nightmares that had seemingly lasted all night, for more than a week. She'd also stopped eating properly and Emily had eventually been forced to give Miranda a lecture about that.

Miranda couldn't allow any of that to happen again. It would be easy enough to make herself eat properly and eat enough, but staving off those nightmares... Miranda had no idea of how to do that, because unlike Andy, Miranda tended not to vocalize during her nightmares.

Much later in the day, Miranda admitted her problem to Andy, and the immediate response was a hug. Miranda wanted to, but she couldn't relax into that embrace, and she mumbled apologies until Andy shushed her gently, but firmly.

"I think that's a big sign of how overtired you are," Andy said reasonably. "And if you can't wake yourself out of the real mean nightmares, then we'll set the alarm clock to go off every hour. I'll tell Emily about that, and Nigel, and there'll be no questions there, okay?"

Miranda nodded and leaned her forehead against Andy's shoulder. Andy rubbed her back gently, but didn't turn that into a hug until Miranda huddled closer.

"I love you," Andy whispered.

They'd talked about love and about falling in love, but this was the first time that Andy had said those three little words, and Miranda couldn't think of another time that she'd needed to hear them more than she did now.

"I love you, too, darling," Miranda murmured. She swallowed a lump in her throat. "I'd better get my act together."

Andy didn't argue with that but her expression said that she wanted to.

That night the alarm clock did its job twice, and Andy woke Miranda for a third time a half-hour or so before the clock would've gone off. Andy explained that Miranda didn't make a noise but she tossed and turned. She was in a helluva sweat and needed a change of pajamas, too. Andy smoothed damp hair off Miranda's forehead and kissed her briefly.

"You did what you had to do," Andy whispered. "You coulda passed the buck, ordered a firing squad to shoot those two Gestapo assholes, but you didn't. Horrible as it is, it was also the only honorable way to handle the whole deal, and like Alain said to me today, it never seems possible but you somehow get people to respect you more and more... All of that's true, and maybe if you think about it, that'll help with the bad dreams."

"That's not the sort of thing I could've told myself," Miranda said.

"You would've, eventually. I think you've told yourself something like that at least once before."

"Eventually," Miranda said, with a small nod.

"Was that the thing you told Ravitz about?" Andy asked.

"Yes, and not even that young man's mother holds it against me. Two of the people he got killed were his second cousins. And I couldn't let it slide. If I had, then there'd be none of this, none of what we're capable of today. That day every witness began to see that discipline is everyone's responsibility... Anyway, I put it to a vote, and sixty-odd men and women agreed that that man should pay the full price for his carelessness, and he didn't argue."

"Wasn't any need for a vote last night," Andy said. "If we'd let those two Gestapo goons go, they'd have lied about what happened, instead of saying to their brass, 'We'd better drop this dumb-ass plan, cos the Vixen's the opposite of scared.'"

"Yes, I know. Still..." Miranda said and hunched a shoulder. "The right thing to do is sometimes also the worst... But it can't be long now, before we neither of us will be required to make that sort of decision again. Until then, if I must again, then I will again."

"Here's hoping you don't have to, and I don't have to," Andy said and turned out the lamp. "And let's also hope that you sleep through till morning."

Miranda agreed and settled against Andy's side, and let the change in Andy's breathing and her heartbeat soothe her to sleep. The damn clock soon woke them up, and Miranda said for Andy to set it for the usual hour, and that was the last Miranda remembered until morning. Her dreams hadn't been pleasant, but they hadn't been so awful that the bucket next to the bed was needed.

"But we'll keep it handy," Andy said while getting dressed.

"Mmm," said Miranda.

"You're always such a grouch in the mornings," Andy chortled. "It's kinda cute."

"Just you go and see to the cows," Miranda huffed.

"I will. What's cooking for you today?"

"A lot of bottling, and hopefully the generator behaves itself."

The generator in question had been a gift from the US Army two years ago. It had been airdropped in many pieces and Arthur, Henri, and Tomas had built it up according to the plans dropped with it. For the most part, the enormous and very noisy generator did an outstanding job, but sometimes it developed some sort of hiccup that required the engine to be stopped while all the fuel was drained from it, then primed and restarted. If that hiccup happened in the middle of bottling, then positive siphon pressure would be lost on a pump, resulting in a wine-spill.

When Miranda walked into the generator's specially built house, Tomas and Henri were grease-to-the-elbows, both working to drain any fuel and re-prime the engine in the hope that that might stave off the hiccup. A few minutes later, Henri swung the big starting crank, and the engine roared into life, and Tomas worked gently with the idle lever until the roar tamed to a healthy-sounding working chug. Miranda gave them a nod and jogged over to the bottling shed.

"Ready," she told Alain.

"God preserve the generator," said Alain.

"Amen," said a small assembly of local women.

Alain pushed a lever, and a small conveyor began feeding freshly-boiled upright bottles into a chute. The following bottles pushed a bottle under a nozzle, which Alain lowered into the bottleneck, and the conveyor paused while that bottle was filled. He placed the full bottle onto a second conveyor, and Miranda was the one operating the corker. After being corked, the bottle was wiped by someone and put onto a third conveyor, and someone else collected it and held it while a paper label was gummed in place by someone else. The bottle was then placed on its side on a wheeled rack which, when full, was wheeled into a cellar where rack upon rack of wines were being bottle-aged before sale. The new wine would be placed right at the back of the cellar and shifted forward once other bottles had been boxed up for sale.

After a full two hours of bottling, Miranda called a halt for breakfast. Henri and Tomas had already had their breakfasts, and went off to drain and re-prime the generator again, and again that was in hope of cutting the hiccup off at the pass.

At breakfast Miranda was informed of the arrival of two new calves and fourteen lambs, overnight.

"Lambs, lambs everywhere," Emily chuckled. "How's the bottling going?"

"A hundred-and-eighty bottles in two hours," Miranda said.

"That's... exactly forty seconds per bottle," Andy said.

"It is? Well, that's not bad," Miranda said. "Installing a labeling machine would shave off a few seconds, but that'll have to wait. Forty seconds per bottle... My, my."

"Used to take much longer?" Andy asked.

"I've since given it away, but we used to have a huge mechanical barrel-hoist," Miranda said. "And we bottled by gravity-feed. So the pipe would be in the hoisted barrel and the wine would pour down the pipe, into each bottle. I'd say it took around forty seconds just to fill a bottle. Bottling was a process requiring weeks, not days."

"Welcome to the modern age," Andy chuckled.

"Isn't faster bottling better for the wine?" Emily asked.

"As long as the bottle is still filled gently," Miranda said.

"No bubbles, no frothing," Jeannette spoke up. "The wine must come into the bottle smooth."

"Mmm," Miranda agreed around a mouthful. Once done with it, she said, "All wines go through a period of bottle-shock. The scientists blame a momentary meeting with oxygen, when the wine's exposed to air during bottling, and that's the reason that newly bottled wine can taste awful."

"That's why we age the wine before selling it," Jeannette said. "Other people bottle and sell at once, and they expect the buyer to age the wine. But what if they do not?"

"They blame the label for bad wine," Emily said.

"Exactly," Miranda said. "And that's terrible for business. But we have the space here to age wine before sale."

"Many winemakers are very envious of Miranda's cellars," Jeannette said and put another helping of scrambled eggs on Miranda's plate. "But now there are big machines that can dig holes easy. They should stop being envious and make the _grand projet_ to dig their own cellars."

"How old are the cellars here?" Andy asked.

"Oh, hundreds of years old," Miranda said. "The youngest of them was dug and reinforced at least a hundred years before the Revolution. There's one that none of us have ventured into, but I think this war's made us all more brave, or more stupid, because even Alain has been muttering about _la grotte_."

"The hill that is the whole of the west cow pasture?" Jeannette said. "The cellar is under that hill. But no-one dug anything of it, except the tunnel to reach it."

"It's a natural cave, as far as Alain's father could make out," Miranda said. "When he died, so went the last pair of eyes to see that place. The tunnel needs a lot of shoring— _expert_ shoring."

"I'll jump out of planes, but I'm not going anywhere near that ruddy tunnel," said Emily.

"Yeah, me neither," Andy said and shuddered.

"We'll find an expert, after the war," Miranda chuckled.

The bottling continued throughout the day and by five p.m over six-hundred bottles had been placed on racks. Miranda estimated that they'd be done with this bottling session in another three days, and she was rather pleased about that. As she'd said this morning, a matter of days only was better than weeks on end of bottling. It was a task that both Miranda and Alain felt could not be left to others, which meant that bottling tied the both of them up until it was done.

That evening Miranda invited Alain to dinner, but he demurred, saying that his wife had sent word that she'd roasted a chicken. A large chicken, as it turned out, was what Jeannette had put in the oven for dinner tonight. Nigel, Emily, and Andy were working on a few side dishes, and after she'd cleaned up, Miranda helped them with that.

They'd all just sat down at the dining table when Henri walked in. He sat down and helped himself to a plate of food, and after a couple of mouthfuls, he gave Miranda a pointed look.

"You and Emily can begin tomorrow evening," Miranda said. "The Gestapo were expecting immediate action from us, I'm sure."

"Aah, _mais oui_ ," Henri said, nodding. "A good delay, then."

"We have to keep our heads," Miranda said. "Both figuratively, and literally. We none of us are any use to anyone if we're dead, hmm?"

"I do not intend to feed the worms just yet," Henri said.

The next morning, whenever Miranda wasn't busy with bottling, she heard a regular _Thuk...Thuk_ that came from under ground: Emily and Henri were sighting-in their rifles in the long hundred-yard tunnel that linked three cellars. The Gewehr 43, or G43 was a ten-shot semiautomatic rifle that had been invented and produced by the Germans in answer to Russia's SVT-40, whose ten-shots-as-fast-as-one-could-pull-the-trigger had inflicted heavy German losses all through 1941, and still accounted for the most German dead on the Eastern Front. The G43 was a much better rifle than the bolt action Mauser Kar98, but there were still many German soldiers using the Kar98 carbine, because G43s were expensive to produce.

"The first one I handled was awful," Emily said. "But these newer ones are splendid beasts. I won't try a shot past five-hundred yards, but closer, and she'll drop whatever I aim at."

" _Oui_ ," Henri said while cleaning his rifle. "And I like your idea: we wait for two targets, shoot together, move and split up for a while, then meet again later."

"They'll be looking for two shooters," Emily said. "Even if they catch one of us, chances are they'll let us go, especially if we've hidden our rifles."

"We must pack everything we need in small haversacks that we can hide, too."

"Agreed," Emily said.

At around four p.m, Miranda was in the bottling shed when Andy walked in. Her expression was a mixture of worry and annoyance, and Miranda guessed that it had to do with Henri and Emily leaving without saying goodbye. Miranda pointed out that Andy had the same habit.

"But there's more risk involved this time," Andy said.

"Andrea, dead is dead," Miranda said pointedly. "If there's any risk of ending up dead, then the risk is all the same, no matter what kind of action one's involved in."

"They'll also be away longer," Andy said.

Miranda operated the corker and Andy placed the bottle on the next conveyor that led to the labeling station.

"Here's what I suggest," Miranda said. "Get your men together and have a chat about what you can do tonight to spread the enemy's focus. The plan was to blow things up while Emily and Henri are busy, but if you can do more, then that will help."

Andy nodded and kissed Miranda's cheek, and left. Miranda placed another corked bottle on a conveyor, and placed an uncorked bottle under the corker. She guessed that Andy would call a general meeting, rather than simply speaking to her five men alone.

When Miranda was done for the day, she found a note on the kitchen table:

_M–_  
_Won't be back until around 3 a.m._  
_Love you_  
_–Andy_

The note landed in Miranda's bedside drawer, and she took a quick bath. She thought it likely that the Germans might find themselves wondering what the hell they'd done to deserve all the punishment that Andy and others were about to mete out. But if those Germans knew about the dead fox in Miranda's kitchen, they'd know where to place the blame.

"Yeah, bet on it," Nigel said. Dinner tonight was a stew and he helped himself to seconds. "Those three bodies were first found by Wehrmacht men, so that blew any hope the Gestapo had of keeping their wannabe intimidation scheme under wraps. Those Wehrmacht fellas won't know the details, but they know that two Gestapo men and some _Vichyste_ dog met a definite end. They'll ask questions and someone, somewhere will talk."

"I think it's possible that someone, somewhere has been talking a lot already," Miranda said. "The level of arrogance involved in that dead fox nonsense... Arrogance like that gets people killed, and by now that's a fact well-known to any German soldiers who've made it to age twenty-five and beyond. Among those men, the Gestapo have made no friends."

"Like poor Hertzog, and Gregor," Nigel said. He had a mouthful of stew, and said, "Y'know, when our Allied boys finally invade, I won't be even a little surprised if a few hundred Krauts pitch up here and surrender to you."

"I don't know about hundreds, but I'm expecting a few," Miranda said wryly. And: "You need to keep me busy this evening."

"Worried about her, huh?" Nigel said.

"Andrea, Emily, Henri—everyone. I worry about them all, and you, too, when you're out there committing mayhem."

"It really cannot be long now," Nigel said. "The goddamn Krauts will surely be pushed outa France before the end of the year."

"And Italy soon after that, and then they'll be cornered in Germany," Miranda said and had a sip of wine. "With the Red Army and our forces forming a pincer... But I don't think that madman Hitler will ever surrender."

"Hopefully some of his generals will be sane enough to bump him off," Nigel muttered.

"Nigel, if there are any sane German generals left, I doubt they're close enough to Hitler to successfully _bump him off_. Either that, or the sane generals are all cowards."

"You've got a point," Nigel drawled.

After dinner they played backgammon until Nigel lost three games in a row and considered that a sure sign that his pillow was calling him. Miranda also headed in the general direction of bed, but not to sleep. Someone from the SOE was expected any day now, on his way to a ride on a Lysander plane, and Miranda would be able to send a letter to her girls.

Writing that letter wasn't easy. Caroline and Cassidy knew that their mother was the Silver Vixen, and they knew much of what that entailed, but most of what they knew had been backed by Miranda's longstanding policy not to deliberately kill German soldiers. That had changed because it had had to change, and that was something that most adults could grasp, but Miranda's girls were only twelve. Their birthday had been in January, a day that had seen Miranda in a foul mood. Everyone had practically tiptoed around her and that had only served to darken her mood even more.

Tonight Miranda tried this phrase and that on scrap paper, and eventually cobbled together a way to explain to her daughters that her original policy regarding German soldiers had changed. Other parents mightn't have even tried, especially with that aspect of separation, but even at a distance from them, Miranda felt that she had to be honest with her girls. Honesty was always a risky thing—the risk of being misunderstood was the very reason that lying had been invented, but Miranda had to hope for her girls' understanding of France's current rock-and-hard-place predicament:

'... _I won't tell you not to worry, because the situation is rather bad. Even though General de Gaulle has called us an army, we're outnumbered, and he's safe in England. We're the FFI, the French Forces of the Interior, and we have to clean this place up from the inside out. We have nowhere to run, and so we must make the enemy think about running._

_So you see, there's no going back now, my girls. We're either in it, or all of us here must sit on our hands, and you both know that I cannot do that._

_I've already had to do awful things, and I must expect to do other awful things. To imagine anything else, any other way, is to be unrealistic which is dangerous. All I can promise is that I'll not take unnecessary risks, and I promise as much because I want so to see you both again, as soon as possible._

_Know that I miss you both so very much, and that I love you more than I can express. Hopefully we'll all be together again soon, my darling girls_...'

After she'd sealed the letter in an envelope, Miranda sat a while in silence, with her mind a schooled blank. She'd learned to keep from crying about the forced separation from her daughters: it was better to curse the war and think of ways to end it sooner, than to cry. And bad enough that she had to deal with a near constant Miss-them ache, not to deal with the sinus headache that usually followed any long spell of crying.

Miranda glanced at the envelope on the desk and frowned: she'd said nothing at all of Andy—then again, what could she say about Andy, given their circumstances? It was better for Miranda to say nothing to her girls until it was certain that they and Andy would meet, one day. But Miranda found herself nibbling a thumbnail, hoping quite hard that her daughters would like Andy. They'd liked Alice enough to miss her badly. That had been Miranda's only regret, regarding Alice, and it had been a regret that had led to Miranda marrying Stephen even though she hadn't been sure about him. Her girls had never thought much of him, but Miranda didn't know if that had been so because Alice had left and Cassidy and Caroline had perhaps decided not to like Stephen in case he left. And then he had, not that Miranda regretted that, at all, and her girls were likely to have similar feelings.

They barely remembered their father. He'd been ready to run before they'd reached their first birthday. Marcel hadn't wanted children, and had ended up being saddled with twins, no less. Miranda couldn't keep an amused smirk off her face, remembering Marcel's expression when she'd told him that she was pregnant. A few months later he'd been present when the doctor had talked about the dangers of a twin pregnancy at age thirty-five– Marcel's expression then had been beyond priceless, to the point where the doctor had been forced to remark, "But _monsieur_ , you won't be the one who has to bear them." Marcel had, however, been the one who'd had to help through sleepless nights when two wailing babies had the colic, or were teething, both at the same time. Marcel had lasted until the chickenpox, just before Cassidy and Caroline had turned four. To this day, Miranda marveled at the fact that Marcel had stuck around during the croup almost a year earlier. She'd thought that that worrying, sleepless period would've caused him to bolt, but no, the last straws had been the appearance of red spots, and Miranda's asking him to help her bandage the girls' hands to keep them from scratching. He'd helped with that initial bandaging and had packed his things immediately after. She hadn't heard a word from him or of him since, but she had an idea that he'd gone to Canada: Marcel had relatives in Quebec.

She'd never held that escape against him, but not even Nigel understood that; Andy didn't either. Miranda hadn't ever been the sort of person who felt compelled to convince people that her point of view, on anything, was the right one. She had, however, attempted to get Nigel and more recently Andy to see Marcel's side of things: point paramount, he was not father material, and Miranda had ignored that. She'd always wanted children, but when she'd hit thirty without a single skipped period, she'd thought that she might be barren, and when she'd finally skipped a couple of periods in a row, she'd thought that perhaps menopause was on its way early. But then she'd skipped the third period, and though she never had trouble with morning sickness, she was noticeably hungrier, all the time. A trip to the doctor had confirmed it: she was pregnant. Miranda had been overjoyed; Marcel had felt the opposite. Her daughters had been conceived on a night when she and Marcel had both had a little too much wine, the first time they'd had sex in nearly six months: for months before that night, Miranda had been expecting Marcel to leave. Despite the fact that their relationship had been almost over, despite the fact that her pregnancy should've been enough of a reason for him to bolt, Marcel had hung in there.

Miranda didn't like to think about why, because her mind cruelly presented the possibility that Marcel had entertained ideas of Miranda miscarrying. She focused instead on what she knew as fact: he hadn't wanted children, had been honest about that always, and her pregnancy and the arrival of the twins had been, for Marcel, a deal-breaker. But she was also honest: his leave-taking hadn't bothered her in the slightest. If he hadn't left, she'd have ended up booting him out. Likewise, she was honest about not knowing when that might've happened, and what if her girls had been older, and how much might that have hurt them?

Instead, Marcel had walked out when her girls were too young to remember that. They'd also been too young to remember that he hadn't liked to hold them or touch them. Frankly, Miranda had no clue why Nigel and Andy thought that Marcel should've made an attempt to stick around longer: that would've had decidedly nasty consequences for Caroline and Cassidy. Miranda knew exactly what it was like to come to a realization that her father hadn't wanted her– she'd been a few months shy of her sixth birthday, and that still hurt, more than forty years later.

Miranda deliberately switched her train of thought to Andy, but that train of thought was rather rude in reminding Miranda that thinking of Andy tended to often cause her to think of her father, too. If she and Andy survived this war, Miranda was going to have to tell her children that because their mother was Jewish, they were Jews, too. She had no idea how her girls might take that news.

Miranda didn't hold by the Victorian notion that children should be seen and not heard, nor to the companion notion that children shouldn't speak unless spoken to. Her girls asked questions while fully expecting to be answered, and when questions were asked of them they were happy to babble away in response. They also had opinions and had no trouble expressing them—as on the day that Cassidy had firmly told Stephen, "You're not our dad, and not an uncle, and we're not being naughty so we won't be quiet." Stephen hadn't been able to argue with that, so he'd taken his hangover-induced headache elsewhere. The girls were going to ask why they'd not been raised Jewish, and they were going to ask why it seemed important that they should be told now. The second question would be easy to answer, if Andy was still in the picture (Miranda hoped, and hoped, but had no real faith in that hope: nothing these days was certain, absolutely nothing). As for the first question, Miranda was going to have to be honest regarding her feelings about her father and how she'd been raised. Miranda dreaded that enough that she was seriously considering chickening out of telling her girls that they were Jewish. But it was important to Miranda, and suddenly so, that they should know.

She would have objected to and actively resisted the German Occupation of France even if she hadn't been Jewish herself, but the fact that she was Jewish, and by birthright, her children were, too, had made every Nazi everywhere Miranda's sworn enemy.

She was still sitting at the small desk in her room, and she picked up her fountain pen again. Nothing was certain, and Miranda might not survive to see the end of the war. This letter would be sent for safekeeping to a certain SOE official who'd see to it that Caroline and Cassidy got the letter, should Miranda be killed. The words she wrote now flowed rather easily, with barely a pause for thought regarding phrasing. It was a long letter, one that covered her childhood and her father's unkind regard for a firstborn girl-child. It explained Miranda's reasons for turning her back on Judaism, and also her chief reason for thinking that it was important that her daughters should know about all of this now: Andy.

'... _You two may never meet her, though I hope you do. She cares about you just because she loves me, and she's the reason that I wrote about all of those other things. She's the reason that I'm thinking carefully about who I am, and in turn, about who the both of you are, and what it means in these horrible days. I don't know how many of us Hitler has managed to kill—hundreds of thousands, perhaps, and only because we're Jewish. This great injustice is one that no-one should condone, but it's one that anyone who is a Jew should never forget._

_So remember, and my darlings, if you can, learn more about who you are. Faith is a personal question with an equally personal answer, but your heritage and your birthright are less so. If you weren't reading this letter, I'd be telling you all you wanted to know, because though I tried to leave it all behind, I never could, not really. I write this now in the few days before Passover, and with only a little thought I can remember every word of the Haggadah, the text recited during the seder, the Passover meal. I find myself regretful that you don't know it, that you don't know the Four Questions and their answers, that you don't know how to sing "Chad Gadya"– a song about a little goat, similar to "The House That Jack Built." That song refers to many of our trials and tribulations—we Jews have suffered far more of those than anyone's usual lot._

_And this was the reason I decided to fight, and it's the reason why I'm fighting today, why I must fight, for though I'm not a practicing Jew, many others of us are, and they have an inalienable right to be who they are, to live and worship as they will._

_If you're reading this, then I'm gone, my darling girls. It'll be no comfort at all, I know, but you should know (even if you don't want to, even if you're angry with me) that I went out of this world while fighting against those who seek to destroy all of us, even you._

_But while I live, and (I hope) even after, I love you both_...'

With tears in her eyes, Miranda sealed the letter in an envelope and wrote a brief note to accompany it; both the note and the envelope went into another envelope which she addressed only with a code-name in capital letters.

Miranda wiped her eyes and glared angrily at the floor, thinking that this damn war had better not drag on, because the longer she was involved, the less likely she was to care about the nature of her efforts to help end it. The SOE wasn't nicknamed 'the Office of Ungentlemanly Warfare' for nothing: everyone involved with and employed by the SOE found themselves thinking much the same thoughts as Miranda's. If Hitler was brought before her right now she'd be hard-pressed not to shoot him in both knees before putting a bullet in his deranged brain.

She tried not to think about Hitler anymore, but she wasn't very successful. Sometime later she was still wide awake and poor Andy was greeted by a glower.

"Geez Louise..." Andy said. "What bit you?"

"This whole _fucking_ war," Miranda said through her teeth. "I finally wrote that letter."

"What letter?"

"The first paragraph opens with, 'If you're reading this, my darlings, then I'm dead.' _That_ letter."

"Yeah, that would bite," Andy said. She sat on the edge of the bed and kissed Miranda for a short while. "If it's any consolation, the big _BOOM!_ you mighta heard around midnight was me and my crew blowing up that ammo depot in the old quarry sixty kilometers from here."

"I heard it, yes," Miranda said with a small, rather wicked smile. "Thank you. And I take it you were busy elsewhere, too?"

"Here and there. We hit a radar station about thirty minutes after the quarry, and Arthur and his crew lit up a fuel depot just outside Paris. Then his crew and mine teamed up, and just twelve of us took out about a hundred-fifty meters of track in five minutes: run in, set charges, link charges, run back, _BOOM!_ We've gotten that down to a fine art now."

"Seems so, and hopefully all of that was a help to Emily and Henri," Miranda said.

"We had fourteen teams out tonight, and we'll cause as much chaos tomorrow night," Andy said. She kissed Miranda again, and said, "You okay?"

"Just more angry than usual," Miranda said with a small shrug. "And I'm having to ward off impatience– nothing gets people killed faster, these days, than impulsive actions spurred by impatience."

"Uh-huh. Just keep reminding yourself of that, and I'll remind you, too," Andy said, her tone no-nonsense. "I'll be real mad at you if you end up hurt or dead cos you did something without thinking it through properly."

"Noted," Miranda said seriously. "But frankly, I'm more concerned that I might get others killed."

"That, too," Andy said. "And ditto, I'll be mad at ya."

"Thank you—No, honestly now: it's a help," Miranda said softly, and she stilled Andy's mild protest. "I've always had to think of my girls, but now that they're safe... It's a great help to have someone who knows that they have a right to expect me to always be responsible. Given the risks involved, it's often frightening, knowing that a couple of thousand people will do exactly as I say."

"Scary, all right," Andy said in a mumble. "Heavy burden, too."

"Sure you want to help me bear it?" Miranda asked.

"What kinda question is that?" Andy said, frowning. "Sure, I hadn't thought about it quite that way, but it doesn't change how I feel about you. I'm with you for the duration, burden or no fuckin' burden."

"The Germans really did tick off the wrong Jew, didn't they?" Miranda chuckled.

"Huh?" Andy muttered, her frown changing to confusion.

"I mean that you're a fighter, through-and-through, and one who simply won't be beaten."

"Uh-huh, and you remember that and don't ask me any more of those silly questions, okay?"

"Yes, darling," said Miranda.

"You're full of it," Andy said.

She pinned Miranda to the bed and snuffled in her neck to the point where Miranda was a near-silently laughing boneless heap.

"Oh, you're _mean_..." Miranda wheezed.

"Maybe, but I chased that oh-so-serious mood didn't I?" Andy said with a grin.

"And I needed that," Miranda said, smiling.

"Wanna take a guess at what I need?" Andy said and kissed Miranda's throat.

"No guesses required," Miranda murmured.

And she needed this, too, needed to be taken away from everything, for a while, and left sated and sleepy so that what little sleep she got seemed more and deeper and good. Still, both Miranda and Andy ended up covering yawns at the breakfast table. Nigel and Jeannette ignored those yawns, though in a rather pointed way. Andy kept blushing, but Miranda didn't give a single damn.

Word of what Henri and Emily had been up to reached the chateau before the two of them returned. Miranda had set the number of Gestapo targets at ten, and Emily and Henri had clearly decided to do some traveling. Over a period of four days, they'd assassinated two Gestapo members in Vichy, two in Limoges, two in Bourges, two in Orléans, and the final two in Paris.

" _What?_ " Andy squawked.

"I swear, it's true," Arthur said. "And it couldn't be anyone else who shot those last two, no?"

"I highly doubt it was anyone else," Miranda said, but she was just as surprised as Andy. "Good grief... Though I suppose, with the way Emily and Henri moved from place to place so fast, there wasn't too much risk. Let's just hope that they get home in one piece."

"Amen," Andy said quietly.

There was a fair amount of nail-biting over the next eighteen hours, and yet more nail-biting after Tomas dropped in to say that he'd been summoned to Paris to fetch Henri, but there was no word from Emily. Tomas said that he'd gotten the message via runner.

"There were seven runners in all, that boy said," Tomas said, while Miranda fixed him some sandwiches. "You're making enough for Henri, too?"

"Mmm. I wonder, about Emily," Miranda said.

"Me, too," Tomas said gruffly.

Miranda sent him on his way and went down to the basement to use the radio. She put on the headphones and used the Morse key to tap out the current code of just one contact, followed by her own current call-sign. After five minutes of no response barring the squeal and whistle of static, she tapped out the same and waited again. Just before she was going to try for a third time, a response came in, just an acknowledgment. Miranda tapped the query code and paired it with Emily's current call-sign. The response came back almost at once: _No word_.

"Dammit..." Miranda said through her teeth.

She signed off and turned off the radio, and she took a proper look at her basement: there was a path clear to the radio, and some space to move the stool closer to the table and away from it. The rest of the space was a (somewhat) organized mess of boxes and equipment, and another (sort-of) clear path led to a heavy door: the armory.

"I'm not looking in _there_ ," Miranda drawled.

Within a half-hour of trying to sort and tidy things _in situ_ , Miranda decided that that wasn't going to work. She enlisted Nigel's help and Nigel ended up roping in Andy and Jeannette. Most everything was lugged out of the basement into the kitchen, and beyond: there were some things that shouldn't have resided in the basement in the first place. Everything else was reordered and packed in such a way that light things were layered above heavy items.

"That big heavy box is still up there, though," Andy said, gesturing up at the door into the kitchen. "What the hell's in that thing? Lead?"

"No. A Vickers Medium Machine Gun, or MMG, with two extra barrels," Miranda said. "And I think it's high time we find the right sort of vehicle and build a mount for dear old Betsy."

" _Betsy?_ " Nigel said, blinking. "Oh, don't tell me..."

"Miranda didn't give the gun that name," Jeannette said. "It belonged to some British soldiers in the Great War."

"They engraved 'BETSY' on the cover over the firing mechanism," Miranda said.

"Betsy-shmetsy," Andy drawled. "I'm glad you got ideas about putting her on a truck, cos she just about broke my back, going up those stairs."

"Yeah," Nigel muttered. "Mine, too. And do you even know how to operate that thing?"

"No, but there's a manual," Miranda said.

She'd nearly said, 'No, but Emily does,' but had caught herself just in time. With more room than the stairs had allowed, and with four handles on the case, Miranda and her three helpmates managed to get the MMG into the brandy cellar without taxing their backs too much. Just as they came out of that cellar, and while Nigel was locking the doors, a vehicle arrived.

"That's too soon for Tomas and Henri," Andy said and she sprinted off.

"Go," Nigel told Miranda and Jeannette. "I'll be along."

Miranda and Jeannette jogged away together, and rounded the east wing of the chateau in time to see Emily get gingerly out of a dark blue Bugatti: her right arm and left leg were both in plaster casts. From the heights of oh-thank-God, Miranda's heart sank just a little, because the last thing they needed was for Emily to be injured.

"It's just a disguise, but bloody uncomfortable," Emily called, shaking her head. "Don't you worry about me."

"And Henri?" Miranda asked as she came nearer.

"He's got a hospital release card, too, and to make a recent 'appendectomy' believable, Jack gave him a bit of a scratch before putting in honest-to-God, pukka stitches."

"Henri is insane," François stated. "Those stitches were his idea!"

"Yeah, definitely a little nuts," Andy drawled. "And you, too, Em: taking potshots at the fuckin' Gestapo _in Paris_."

"In for a penny," Emily said with a shrug. "Can one of you please fetch a wood chisel and a mallet? Just ten more minutes in these ruddy things and I'll go bonkers."

Miranda was the one who fetched the tools and at the table just outside the kitchen door, she wielded them, carefully, and Andy used pliers after that to break away the plaster scored by the chisel. Nigel finished the job by cutting away cotton-wool and gauze, and free of her bonds at long last, Emily promptly smacked a kiss on Nigel's forehead.

"I'm so glad you're back," he blurted.

"Me also," Jeannette said.

"Very relieved," Miranda murmured agreement.

"What they said," Andy said and hugged Emily.

"Maybe I should go away more often," Emily said wickedly.

That was the real tension-breaker, and Miranda had a good laugh at Andy's expression.

"Ugh!" Andy said and gave Emily a little shove. "I dunno who's worse: you or _her_."

"You don't like to be admired?" François said. "You're a strange kind of woman..."

"I keep thinking the same thing," Nigel said, ragging, his grin broad but also fond.

" _I_ am still figuring out what kinda woman I am," Andy said and wagged a finger at Miranda. "And sometimes—as you can see—she thinks it's hilarious."

"I'm not laughing at you, darling; merely in your general direction," Miranda chortled.

"And I'm merely aiding and abetting," Emily said ever-so-innocently.

"You're _merely_ full of shit," Andy said, but her face wasn't straight anymore. " _Both_ of ya. And I got cows to milk."

"I brought old clothes," François announced and hurriedly picked up his bag. "I'll change quickly and come and help you."

"Sure," Andy said.

"It's that low barn over there," Nigel said, pointing out the dairy.

"See you in there," Jeannette said and linked arms with Andy and Nigel.

"You're not going home?" François asked.

"No, I pour the milk into the settling trays, for the cream to rise overnight," Jeannette said over her shoulder. "Change your clothes, and you will see."

"All right," François said and hurried into the house.

Miranda turned to Emily and found her breaking the halved plaster casts into pieces. Miranda helped her with that, and also with digging a hole at the edge of the kitchen garden, where the busted up plaster was buried. Miranda gestured at another small patch of turned earth.

"That fox can say he's been properly avenged."

"I keep thinking about that little reynard," Emily said. "I've been here two years and he was the first fox I'd seen here."

"He was only the fourth fox I've seen in twenty-six years, yes," Miranda said.

"The Gestapo spent a lot of time hunting a rare animal," Emily said pointedly. "Far longer, I wager, than the time it took for Henri and I to hunt ten of them."

"I hadn't considered that angle," Miranda said. "But here's another bet: the Gestapo in Vichy are thinking about that."

"Undoubtedly," Emily said, nodding. "And we turned the tables properly: they're usually the ones who exact reprisals, aren't they?"

"And now they know without doubt that I'll order reprisals of my own," Miranda said.

"Costly ones, too," Emily said. "Those bloody fools will probably mind their Ps and Qs now. If they don't..."

"If they don't, you'll be training more snipers," Miranda stated flatly.

"I've an odd suspicion that they've thought along those lines," Emily drawled.

Tomas returned with Henri about a half-hour after sunset, and Henri was given as warm a welcome as Emily had received. He bit on the handle of a wooden spoon while Miranda removed his very real stitches. She swabbed his faked appendectomy site with slightly diluted alcohol, and Henri hissed around the spoon handle, and his eyes watered. Miranda took away the spoon and gave him a glass of brandy, and Henri slugged back half of it and wiped his eyes.

"Hopefully you won't have to do anything like that again," Miranda said.

"Hmph," Henri snorted. "We were stopped, and the soldiers didn't take my release card seriously. But then I pulled up my shirt—"

"They apologized," Tomas said, shaking his head. "Such a nice apology, in German first: ' _Entschuldigen Sie, bitte_.'"

"Wow, they used _Sie_ and not _du?_ " Andy said.

"Formal, very nice: truly sorry," François said.

"Uh-huh," Henri said. "So the stitches were a very good disguise—the best disguise, maybe. It hurts, _oui_ , but I will use it again, if I must– gladly."

"Me, too," Tomas said firmly. And with a grin: "Maybe even just to hear a _Boche_ man say to me, 'Oh, but I'm so sorry!'"

"That is a big temptation..." Henri chortled.

"Maybe you two scored the first real German apology of the war," Nigel said.

"I think so," Tomas said. He looked at his watch and said, "I must go. Me and my men and Pierre's men have a switch-track to blow up."

Arthur arrived just as Tomas left, and with Arthur there were seven people at the dinner table. Their attitude was almost festive, and Miranda found it hard not to smile, just-because. Emily and Henri were home safe, and that was partly responsible, but there was another aspect to the mood, something that eluded Miranda for quite some time.

It came to her eventually that though the war was not yet over, they all had an idea now that if they lived as long, they'd be on the winning side.

That was something to celebrate, all right.

~ ~ ~

Passover: yet another important holiday that Andy couldn't celebrate properly. Miranda had, however, gone to the trouble of clearing the house of _chametz_ , any leavened product of any kind. Eating _chametz_ at Passover was among the worst sins a Jew could commit, and when that was explained, Jeannette agreed that she wouldn't bake any bread, cakes, or cookies until the day after Passover ended; Emily got on board, too, promising to eschew her usual oats porridge for all eight days of Passover.

All of that meant a great deal to Andy, who'd planned to simply avoid leavened bread. She'd had no hope of anything resembling a Passover _seder_ , but Miranda had had other ideas.

As was her usual custom on Fridays, after the last of her work, Andy cleaned up and headed to the kitchen. Tonight she was waylaid and almost herded into the dining room. The table was set, and besides the usual suspects, several guests were present: Andy recognized all of them as Jewish partisans.

And in the middle of the dining table was a bowl of flat, crisp matzoh bread, and on a plate sat a roasted lamb shank bone and a hard-boiled egg. Another plate bore curly parsley, grated horseradish, and whole horseradish: the _karpas_ , _maror_ , and _chazeret_ herbs required for the Passover _seder_. There was also a bowl of _charoset_ , made of diced apple, raisins, and chopped nuts soaked in wine. The last bowl looked to be filled only with water, but Andy knew that it was salt-water representative of the tears of the Israelites before the Exodus. She stared at the table, her mind almost blank, and only snapped out of it when Miranda took and squeezed her hand.

"We dared not try to find a _shochet_ ," Miranda said, referring to a ritual slaughterer. "But Arthur's father was one of those, so Arthur slaughtered the lamb. But when the leg was halfway roasted, I remembered that you're an Ashkenaz Jew and probably don't serve lamb at all at _Pesach_."

"Uhh..." said Andy. She gestured vaguely at the table. "I... Roast lamb is better than just the roasted shank bone for symbolism, I feel. But wasn't your father Ashkenazi, too?"

"One oddly happy to borrow a few of Mother's Sephardic traditions, especially any involving food," Miranda said dryly. She sat at the table. "Stop standing there."

"Right," Andy said and sat down. "So who's leading this _seder?_ "

"You," said Arthur and handed over a small book. "I had it hidden away."

"If you had the _Haggadah_ all along, why aren't you leading the _seder?_ " Andy said.

"Until today, I forgot that I had it," Arthur said innocently.

"Yeah, right," Andy drawled. She opened the book and rolled her eyes. "Oh swell: it's Hebrew interleaved with _French_."

"So?" Michel said. "We all speak French, no?"

"Ya got me there," Andy said and grinned wryly at the chuckles around the table.

"I thought this was supposed to be a... holy occasion," Emily said. "Is this normal?"

"Technically, it's supposed to be a gathering more joyful than solemn," Miranda said. "But yes, this banter is very typically Jewish."

"And don't expect to eat any time soon," Nigel drawled.

"We could make it very short," Tomas said. "Like this: Pharaoh made us all slaves, but we ran away, the Red Sea drowned the Egyptian soldiers, then we got lost in the desert for forty years. There. Now we can eat."

"No, we can't. You got half of that wrong," Andy said and wagged the _Haggadah_ at Tomas.

"No, I got it all right, but I left out some things," Tomas insisted.

"And that would be a perfect illustration of 'Two Jews, three opinions,'" Miranda told Emily.

"All right, all right," Andy giggled. "Let's get this ultimate act of defiance rolling, huh?"

"You know, I honestly hadn't looked at it that way..." Miranda said, blinking.

"And now that I think about it that way, give me the book," Arthur said.

"Actually, I'd like that book," Miranda said.

"Me, too," Michel said.

"We'll share the _Haggadah_ , okay?" Andy said, amused. "That's the way we do it at home, anyhow. Miranda, you start."

"Let me just get my spare glasses..."

"I'll get 'em," Andy said and gave Miranda the book so long.

In the kitchen, as she opened the drawer where Miranda's spare spectacles resided, Andy realized that her face was already a little sore from grinning. Today she'd briefly thought about talking Miranda into hosting a big _seder_ come the first Passover after the war was over. Andy hadn't hoped to be entirely successful with that venture, but now it was a certainty. Well, as long as Andy didn't end up dead in the meanwhile. Thoughts like that were usually at least a little sobering, but not tonight. _To hell with it_ , Andy thought, grinning again. Hitler could arrive tomorrow and shoot her himself, and she'd go wearing a smug grin.

Deliverance and defiance weren't so very different, Andy realized: the first involved the help of others, and the second involved helping oneself. Deliverance could enable defiance, and defiance could make deliverance possible. Andy and her friends were gathered tonight to remember and tell the story of the Israelites' deliverance from bondage in Egypt, and in the process they were celebrating their defiant self-deliverance from a war-machine intent on their complete destruction.

And never had a _seder_ meant as much to Andy, and she knew that every Jew at the table felt the same way. It was clearly something special for Emily, too– she wasn't merely pretending interest. Ordinarily it was the place of children to ask the Four Questions, but Andy passed the book to Emily. She paraphrased the questions and in so doing was told why tonight Jews ate _matzah_ , and why they ate bitter herbs, and why they dipped those herbs first in salt-water and then into the sweet _charoset_ , and why they might have been reclining instead of sitting around the table.

"Next year I'll have a low table knocked together, and we'll lounge around it on the living room floor," Miranda said. "And we recline to remember that we were freed from slavery, and could henceforth take our ease at meals, instead of hurrying through them to get back to work."

"May I ask something else?" Emily said.

"Yes," everyone else chorused.

"Oh!" said Emily, taken aback.

"Questions are really important," Andy said. "Usually we encourage kids to ask anything and everything, because that helps them to learn about who they are, what their heritage is. You're the honorary Jewish kid tonight. Ask, ask."

"All right," Emily said. "And that's what I was going to ask, the purpose of the Questions."

"The whole _seder_ is a _mitzvah_ , a commandment," Michel said.

"From the verse that says, ' _And you must tell your son_ ,'" Tomas said. "So the old rabbis who first made the _Haggadah_ included the children."

"It's added responsibility for parents to observe the _mitzvah_ ," Andy said. "If children are the ones who ask the Four Questions, then parents are reminded of, ' _Tell your son_.'"

"I've fallen down there," Miranda admitted.

"What can be fixed is not truly broken," Arthur said, wagging a finger.

"They're old enough to make a choice, Arthur," Miranda said.

"They're also young enough to obey their mother," he argued firmly. "You're right: you can't force them to think or feel anything, but you can tell them that for one night every year, they will remember that they're Jews."

"I will if I live as long," Miranda said. "But that's a can of worms that I'm not opening tonight. Who gets the book next?"

The _Haggadah_ continued to make the rounds of the table, and occasionally Emily lived up to her role of 'honorary Jewish kid' by asking questions. Dinner was served closer to eleven p.m than ten, and by then everyone was just about famished. For the first few minutes there was only the sound of cutlery against crockery. For Andy that was a thinking spell, and she eventually decided to voice her thoughts.

"Bet there's a bunch of Krauts thinking it's awful quiet tonight."

"Oh, how I would love to tell them why," Tomas said. "But we'll make up for it soon, no?"

"Uh-huh," Andy said, nodding. "And in a real big way."

"I take it you've decided that blowing up that bridge is worth it," Emily said.

"That line hasn't been used for civilian trains since last year," Michel said. "I think we must get information on all lines like that, then do the kind of damage that is very hard to fix."

"I agree, but that bridge is well-guarded," Miranda noted. "As are other rail-bridges."

"The guards can kiss my ass," Andy said. "I got a plan."

"If it works, other people can use it," Michel said.

"I really hope it works," Tomas said. Also: "This lamb is so delicious..."

"And the best part is that we have to eat all of it," Michel said, grinning.

"Yeah, lucky us. Can't leave even a scrap," Nigel chuckled.

"No?" Emily said.

"No," Miranda said. "The Ashkenaz tradition doesn't allow lamb at Passover at all, but my maternal family and Michel's family are Sephardic, Spanish Jews, and the tradition there is to serve lamb and observe the commandment not to leave leftovers. Just before we fled Egypt we all partook of the Paschal lamb, a sacrificial lamb, and the commandment was to eat it all, or if we weren't able, we had to burn the rest. The tradition nowadays is to plan it so that there are enough guests to eat every bit of whichever kind of lamb dish."

"Remember that _divine_ stew you fixed for the two of us, your last Passover in the States?" Nigel said to Miranda. "Can you remember the recipe? I know it had green garlic in it."

"One of my grandmother's recipes, yes," Miranda said. "I never forget a recipe. I'll make that sometime soon."

"You keep that up and I may never move out," Nigel drawled.

"Why would I complain about that?" Miranda said.

"I'd like to get back to fixing sewing machines, after the war," Nigel said. "You might not complain, but if I don't go back to Le Havre, my business will complain."

"Damn," said Andy.

"She's so sweet," Nigel told Miranda.

"Huh!" Michel said. "By now the _Boche_ don't think so."

"I dunno so much," Andy said with a shrug. "I mean, they don't know who I am."

"Hmm," said Miranda.

"Oh Lord..." Emily mumbled.

" _Oui_ ," Arthur drawled. "You see that flash in her eyes, Andy? Miranda doesn't like it that the _Boche_ don't know who is blowing up their radars and trains."

"Oops," Andy squeaked. "But it's not a big—"

"It _is_ a big deal," Miranda insisted. "You've developed a considerable talent for _making things go BOOM!_ as you like to put it. You've passed on your ideas to others and Emily can tell you that your techniques are being used far beyond France– in Poland, Italy, Yugoslavia, and even in Syria and Greece. Now, it's bad enough that the enemy doesn't know who developed those techniques, but you're not known to our friends either. It's a simple truth that in war, notoriety among the enemy brings recognition among one's comrades and allies."

"But I got that recognition," Andy said, gesturing at the company around the table. "I got no wish to be famous or—"

"Andrea, you could happily take that attitude if you were a man, but you're not," Miranda said.

"She's right," Emily said. "We're acting as partisans, which means limited recognition as it is."

"So you must take what you can get, or nothing will be offered to you later," Arthur said. "As men, we can just wait and officials will look for us: they expect to find men who fought and risked their lives. They must be told that women took those same risks. And yes, of course, we'll speak for you, _amie_ , but there are not so many of us who know you."

"And if your efforts aren't recognized," Miranda said. "That's one less woman thanked for sticking her neck out: completely unacceptable."

"And what they're all talking about," Nigel said. "Is a picture broader than just you, Andy-girl. When this war's over, women who've held jobs vital to the war effort are gonna be told, 'Thanks, and now you can go back to the kitchen.' You like that idea?"

"Fuck, no," Andy muttered.

"Good," Miranda said lightly. "So the Germans are going to find out who you are, and as they've done with our friend the White Mouse, they'll put a price on your pretty head."

"How is this a good thing?" Andy squawked.

"D'you really think the Gestapo would pay five-million francs if anyone delivered Nancy's head to them on a platter?" Emily said with a laugh. "It's all just guff, propaganda, and it actually serves Nancy better than it does the Gestapo."

"Oh," said Andy. "Okay, I get it... And what about you?"

"Well, I'm a WAAF squadron officer, aren't I?" Emily said pointedly, referring to the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. "I have an official war record and they can't sweep that under the rug. I've also got two ribbons already, as well as a King's Commendation– the SOE get those instead of Mentions in Dispatches, because we can't very well have the details of our various stunts printed in national newspapers. I'll get at least one campaign medal as well, issued without question, just because I served in this theater of operations between date X and date Y. That's the military for you, goose."

"Right," Andy drawled. "But what if the WAAF is disbanded straight after the war?"

"I have it on good authority that it won't be, but I'll be resigning my commission directly after the war. That's leaving on my own terms, see?"

"Yeah," Andy said. "Women working in munitions and aircraft factories won't get that opportunity. Like Nigel said, they'll just be laid off."

"And we owe a debt to every one of them, don't we?" Emily said.

"I sure do," Andy said. "I mean, I couldn't make things go _BOOM!_ without all the women who make the explosives and the detonators—"

"And our guns and ammunition," Tomas said, nodding. "And they make the big bombers, too, but I don't like them so much. Just because the _Boche_ are here, I don't think that means the British and Americans have a right to bomb France."

That statement opened a new line of debate, but Andy didn't take part. She listened with half an ear and got herself a second helping of the lamb, of which they couldn't leave leftovers. As Miranda had mentioned earlier, Andy and her family were Ashkenazi Jews and this was the first time that Andy had had lamb at Passover, but what she'd said earlier was true: she saw more sense in having an actual lamb dish served than in only having the roasted shank-bone on symbolic display. As Miranda's father had been, Andy was happy to adopt the Sephardic tradition of lamb dishes at Passover.

The fact that she was having any kind of Passover meal, and was sitting at an actual _seder_ , was still somewhat surreal to Andy– almost unbelievable. And how many Jews were held captive tonight, most of them too weak and sick and weary, and too full of fear to care that it was Passover? How many had no idea that it was indeed Passover? Andy remembered how odd she'd found it that all those camp guards had been careful not to mention the date, never to mention the day of the week... That made a lot of sense now. It made it almost impossible for Jewish prisoners to observe the Sabbath, even in a small way, and those guards made sure that Jews would lose track of time, lose track of their high holidays and festivals.

Andy kept her anger to a simmer and managed to keep it under wraps until the _seder_ was over, and the guests had either gone home or had gone to bed. But in their bedroom, Andy ranted to Miranda about Germany's ruthless attempt to utterly destroy an entire people and their way of life.

"And the worst of it is that we'll never make any sense of it," Andy said. "There is no sense in it– none at all. And how do you prevent something from happening again, if you can't make sense of it?"

"I don't know," Miranda said quietly. "But I think that there'll be many a scholar who'll try to analyze the reasoning behind this mess. Perhaps what they bring to the table will be of help. At least, I hope so."

"Yeah me, too," Andy said and huffed a sigh. "But one thing's damn sure: all of us Jews had better quit being... shtetl-minded. We are _not_ safe until we make ourselves safe, and the first step is to demand to be counted equal, wherever we live. Gathering in little villages and self-exiling in ghettos... How easy was it for the fuckin' Krauts to round us up further east, huh? I heard those guards talking about every Jew in Lublin being wiped out. They wouldn't have managed that if those Jews had been living all over, wherever."

"True," Miranda said simply. She added: "But _Erets Yisro'el_ seems like a good idea."

"Huh," Andy snorted. "If the damn Limeys will let us rule ourselves, sure. But I'm telling ya, we'll have to go to war with them before that'll happen. Great Britain doesn't relinquish her precious territories without a fight."

"True again," Miranda said. "But we're already neck-deep in one war; let's not debate a war that hasn't yet started, please."

"Yeah," Andy agreed.

She sat on the edge of the bed and flopped back, lacing her fingers behind her head. Ordinarily Miranda would've immediately closed the distance, or she'd have at least initiated some contact, but she didn't. Andy frowned and turned her head, and she caught Miranda wearing a rather distant expression.

"Y'all right?" Andy asked quietly.

"An odd mix of déjà vu and something like—I suppose—a premonition: you telling me that you'll be travelling a thousand-odd miles east, to fight another war."

"I think fixing everything for that wonderful _seder_ also cooked your brain," Andy drawled.

"Perhaps," Miranda said and rolled her eyes "And perhaps I'm just getting old and veering toward senility."

"This is also a possibility."

"Cheek..."

"Hey, you suggested it," Andy said, amused. And she said as well, "That other maybe-war... Not the same as this one. I'd be supportive of the Jews fighting that war, sure, but I wouldn't feel like I'd have to be a part of the fight beyond support. Not the same, like I said. It'll be a fight for territory and independence, and while that's necessary and valid, it won't be a fight for survival; the Limeys won't be trying to wipe out all of the Jews there."

"Agreed," Miranda said and lay next to Andy, and ran her fingers through dark hair that was around three inches long. "I overheard you talking to Emily, about having gotten used to your hair."

"Yeah, I like it now," Andy said. "So next time Nigel says something about it needing to be neatened up, I'll let him at it."

"Mmm," said Miranda, who was wearing the ghost of a smile.

"You've never seen me with long hair, and yet you really like it short," Andy said, grinning.

"For the same reason that I like you in a suit. And in trousers and a vest, with your shirt-sleeves rolled. Especially when you wear that flat-cap."

"Sure you wouldn't rather take a boy as a lover?" Andy said, teasing. She definitely knew the answer.

"Boyish girls are far more interesting than boys," Miranda said, smirking.

"Really? I think you should come over here and prove it," Andy giggled.

"Gladly," Miranda said, and while straddling Andy's hips, she said, "Isn't making love on the Sabbath a _mitzvah?_ "

"Both a commandment and a blessing, yep," Andy said with a broad grin. "Don't we have the best religion?"

"Keep reminding me," Miranda muttered and kissed Andy.

~ ~ ~

Around the end of April, Miranda joined Andy and Michel one evening and they travelled to the banks of a river, some distance upstream from a rail-bridge. Miranda had asked about Andy's plan but Andy had said that it would be best if Miranda saw the thing put into action. Tonight was the night for that.

On both banks of the river were two teams of people wearing dark clothing, and even though it wasn't yet full dark, if Miranda hadn't been told about the two teams on the opposite bank, she wouldn't have spotted them.

"Can't do this during the day," Andy said. "Mostly cos the guards would spot our delivery vehicles."

"What, boats?" Emily asked.

" _Non_ ," Michel said. "Barrels."

There was a light briefly shown across the river, from a taped flashlight, and Miranda mentioned that to Andy. She nodded and flashed a signal of her own, and told everyone to step back. Soon enough a grappling hook thudded onto the river bank, and one of Andy's men grabbed it. Someone from the second team on this bank called softly that they also had a light line in-hand. Those light lines were attached to thick ropes which were hauled across the river.

Andy and her team threaded their rope-end through a ring on an old wine barrel and they pushed the barrel into the river. It moved along the rope until it hit a large knot. The second team only had to hold their rope– a barrel had been threaded onto it from the opposite bank.

"We need teams on either side of the river," Andy said. "With both barrels controlled, so we can place them properly. You ready for that swim, Michel?"

" _Oui_ ," he said, already stripped down to his shorts.

The current in the river wasn't especially strong but Michel tied a light line around his waist anyhow. He gripped a coil of detonation cord in his teeth and swam out to the first barrel. Miranda couldn't see what he was doing so Andy explained that he'd link both barrels with a length of detcord. He'd take a second swim, later, to attach detcord to just one barrel, when it was sitting next to one of the bridge-piers.

"My God," said Emily. "You're a bloody genius..."

"If it works," Andy said. "The detcord's waterproof, and it should work properly. The barrels... We smothered the fuckin' things in pitch, so hopefully the explosives inside stay dry... How cold is that water?"

"Pleasant, not cold," Michel said. "The last three hot days have made the water kind to me."

He collected his clothes and boots and headed off to a truck driven by Henri. The plan was that Michel would get into the water close to the bridge, and help to place the barrels, if necessary. Meanwhile, the teams on both banks of the river began to walk the barrels downstream.

There was no talking now. When the people on the ropes needed a break, they simply stopped walking to signal that, and other people took over. Miranda took a hand on the rope and soon found out that even with another five people to help her, that damn barrel was heavy, and heavier still for the current. If the latter had been any stronger the rope teams would've had to be doubled. She was rather grateful when one of the men on her team whispered that his hands were tiring to the point where he was losing his grip– he'd said as much before Miranda did.

When the first team was some twenty meters from the bridge, they stopped walking and paid out their rope until they were given a signal flash from Michel. He was directly beneath the bridge and his flash couldn't be seen by the guards above. The first rope team tied their line off to the nearest tree, then melted away into the woods. Andy's rope team eventually did the same.

Michel emerged from the river and took the end of the fuse-wire on a reel held by Henri. Michel swam out to a barrel again, and he soon returned. Andy wrapped an old blanket around his shoulders before taking the reel from Henri, and Miranda went along with everyone else into the woods.

Andy cut the wire and hooked it up to a detonator box.

"Hope this works..." she muttered.

She pushed in the handle on the detonator, and the bridge seemed to blow in the exact same moment. The shock-wave from the explosion nearly knocked Miranda off her feet, and to add to that insult, even so far from the river, even in the middle of the damn woods, they were all soaked by a stinging spray of water.

"I think maybe we can use less TNT next time," Andy mused.

"No, really?" Tomas said and rubbed an ear that was probably ringing as badly as Miranda's were. " _Mon Dieu_ , the bridge is not even broken rocks..."

" _Oui_ , I think you turned it to sand," Michel drawled.

"And is there any water left in the river?" Henri rumbled while wringing out his beret.

"Geez, everyone's a critic..." Andy said. "C'mon. Let's get outa here... You okay, Em?"

"No, I'm in speechless awe," said Emily and promptly planted a smacker-kiss on Andy's cheek. "You brilliant goose, you. I can hardly wait to deliver my report."

"Did you get word from Barry?" Miranda asked.

"Yes, our wartime shrink thinks your plan is brilliant."

"What plan?" Andy asked as she climbed into a truck.

"You'll see," Miranda said lightly.

She was glad of the fact that by now Andy tended not to nag about those plans, any of them. If Miranda wouldn't discuss something, and if she'd taken only Emily or Nigel into confidence, Andy had learned to trust the need for that. This time the need for locking Andy out had to do with her possible protests.

One of those protests had to do with a certain _nom de guerre_ that a few people had given to Andy: _la Rabouilleuse_ : she who stirs things up. It could also mean 'the Black Sheep' and a lot more people tended to call Andy _la Brebis Galeuse_. Andy hated the Balzac novel _La Rabouilleuse_ , and she had a side-by-side hatred of _Rabouilleuse_ as a _nom de guerre_ , though she had to agree that since she'd set her mind to it, she'd certainly managed to stir up a lot of trouble for the Germans in this part of France.

And Andy's method of quietly getting charges in place next to bridge piers was one that would spread, and likely become the standard procedure.

"Well, where the Germans haven't mined the damn river," Nigel said.

"But that river was mined," Andy said.

"The mines detonated around the same time that Andrea's bombs blew," Miranda said.

"But they didn't detonate beforehand because Andy used _wooden_ barrels," Emily said. "The Germans are still deploying magnetic mines, even though we know exactly how to get around them."

"Those barrels were re-cooped with brass bands," Andy said. "We've got Thierry making up a bunch of barrels like that, but smaller now."

"Twenty kilos of TNT per barrel is quite enough. Fifty was... Well," said Emily, trying to keep her face straight.

"It was pretty," Miranda said.

"I saw the glow from here," Nigel said in agreement.

"Hey, I'd never blown up a huge stone bridge before, okay?" Andy grumbled, red-faced. "And I wasn't alone in wondering if a hundred kilos of TNT was gonna be enough. But now we know, and twenty per barrel will do the job all right."

Three days after the first bridge had been blown almost literally into dust, Andy and her teams hit a second bridge. While it wasn't as completely destroyed as the first, it was still clear that the TNT could be further reduced: fifteen kilograms of TNT per barrel would probably be enough. A few days later, four fifteen-kilo bombs were deployed against a long rail-bridge over the Seine, and the bombs took out the bridge-piers without trouble. In all, Andy and her men had destroyed three bridges in just thirteen days.

Miranda sent a message, via Emily, to Chapman, who would see to it that Barry was informed. After that, Miranda merely waited for Andy's inevitable complaints. They'd be worth it.

It took a while– more than a week after Andy and her crew had blown up the third bridge, she arrived in the kitchen and wordlessly flapped a scruffy piece of paper at Miranda. She calmly wiped her hands and left the kneading of bread dough to Jeannette. Miranda took the paper and read, in German:

_To our Dear German Comrades,_

_Remember this name: la Rabouilleuse. She's the one who has been destroying your bridges in France. Her superb methods are even now being explained to other partisan saboteurs, in every theater of this war, and on every front._

_La Rabouilleuse's stirring of trouble has only just begun. Do enjoy the fireworks displays._

_Sincerely,_

_The Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff_

"From the bosses themselves: I should think so," Miranda chuckled.

"These leaflets are everywhere– people said it looked like planes were dropping confetti," Andy said. "And I hate ' _la Rabouilleuse_.' They shoulda just called me the Black Sheep, _la Brebis Galeuse_ , which is what a lot of people call me."

"Exactly, my darling," Miranda said. "No-one but the Gestapo calls Nancy Wake 'the White Mouse,' and that's more than half the reason why those Nazi bastards haven't caught her yet."

"And I wonder what price the _Boche_ will put on Andy's head..." Jeannette mused.

"Mmm. Hopefully a big one," Miranda said.

Andy rolled her eyes and stalked out of the kitchen, muttering about having books to balance. Jeannette snorted a laugh and elbowed Miranda.

"You must know she really loves you, because she puts up with you."

"Yes," Miranda chuckled smugly.

She was even more smug a week or so later, when Tomas came back from Lyon with a stolen poster. In French and German, it said:

_The Gestapo offers 3,000,000—THREE-MILLION francs for information leading to the capture of the woman known as:_

**_La Rabouilleuse_ **

_The Gestapo and the Nazi High Command appeal to the French people, in your best interests. Remember that your own much-needed supplies of food, medicine, and fuel rely on the rail-bridges that this woman is destroying._

"That's bullshit," Andy said angrily. "Right now Jack and Miranda are supplying medicines to more than half of France, with the help of _Ceux de la Résistance_ , and our supply lines bypass the fuckin' bridges. I wouldn't be blowing 'em up if _we_ needed them."

"And this is what many are saying in Lyon and Paris and other places," Tomas said around a cigarette. "They know the truth, Andy. But they also don't know who in the hell is this _Rabouilleuse_. If the Allied generals had called you _la Brebis Galeuse_... That is another story: many would know."

"And that would be a bigger risk," Nigel said.

"Fine, fine," Andy muttered. And to Miranda: "Happy now?"

"Well, I think you're priceless," Miranda said. "But three-million is a respectable bounty, I suppose."

"Hmph!" Andy snorted. "And how come they've never put a price on your head?"

"Because they know who I am and where I am, and many others know the same. But they'd never give me up, for any sum, so the Gestapo save their ink and they don't bother with bounties on my head."

"And it seems like they've given up with trying to kill you, too," Nigel said.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Emily said.

"Me neither," Andy said. "Sure, those goons have done some stupid things, but if we take chances and rest back thinking they've given up, or worse, that their next attempt to kill Miranda will be hare-brained, then that's the kinda thing that just might get her killed."

"So let's delay putting a date on their defeat, until they've been forced out of France," Miranda said. She gave Emily a pointed look and said, "That should be soon, hmm?"

"As far as I know, yes," Emily said with a little shrug. "My personal take is that they're just waiting for good weather, and it's not good right now."

The weather was, in fact, awful. If it wasn't raining through gales, then the gales were blowing by themselves. That was bad for any vessels intending a crossing of the Channel, and conditions were equally bad for any paratroopers dropped over France. Such drops were always risky, with soldiers ending up separated, and soldiers alone or in small groups would stand no chance against concentrated German forces.

"And even if there's not a breath of wind, there's still a risk of that happening," Emily said. "Sometimes the jump is called too soon or too late, and the first and last men out of the plane end up stranded, or caught up in trees. I love jumping out of planes, but landing? Bloody awful, every time."

"I still think you're nuts," Andy said.

"I don't know," Miranda said. "I'd like to do it just once, just for the experience."

"After the war, I'm almost positive the RAF will organize a jump for you," Emily said. "And I think parachuting is going to become a hobby, or a sport. It's just too much fun for the military to have it all to themselves."

"Even if it becomes the world's most popular sport, you won't catch me jumping outa planes," Nigel stated.

"Same," Andy said. She looked at her watch. "Time for me to head out to meet my crew. Coming along tonight, Em?"

"Yes," Emily said and hastily grabbed a fresh pack of smokes out of a cupboard. "See you later."

"I'll give you a lift," Tomas offered.

"Good luck," Nigel said.

Miranda murmured the same even though she knew that Andy held that she didn't need luck. She was already known for triple-checking everything. Luck, as Andy said, was for people who were less careful and far less organized. Andy used a four-man lookout system that other sabotage crews had adopted because those four lookouts had often proved their worth. When, as tonight, Andy was going to blow up a bridge, she quadrupled the usual number of people involved in a mission, from six to twenty-four, and the lookout numbers were doubled from four to eight. Moreover, no-one involved was a newbie: they all knew their jobs, knew exactly what to do if they were discovered or attacked. It was people like those out with Andy tonight who'd be of most use to Allied soldiers, when they invaded.

By now it was mid-May, 1944, and Miranda knew that the rotten spring weather just couldn't last. Summer would win her battle and bring sun and light breezes, and another kind of battle would follow.

"But we're inland," Nigel said. "That worries me. I mean, while our men are pushing in from the coast, the Krauts are gonna get real heavy-handed against both partisans and civilians."

"And we'll have to load our gloves in response," Miranda said, referring to an old boxing cheat of weighting gloves with lead birdshot. "Radio transmitters must now become highest priority, likewise, telephone lines—"

"I think that instead of just cutting those lines we should take 'em down, steal hundreds of meters of the stuff."

"Good idea," Miranda said. "That'll certainly make it harder for the Germans to repair their communication lines. If we can restrict their communications, then we can make it harder for them to coordinate attacks, or call for help."

"Yeah. I think I'll get a crew of my own now. I'll look after the phone lines," Nigel said.

"I'll call a meeting tomorrow night. You'll have help," Miranda said.

Sometime later, around midnight, a dull, roaring _Boom!_ was heard. Miranda chuckled to herself and carried on reading: somewhere a bridge had bought it, but properly, and Andy's bad reputation had become a little worse, and that was a really good thing.

Andy came home around two a.m and Miranda frowned at her grim expression.

"What happened?"

"We were short a couple fellas tonight," Andy said. "Henri just got word that they were caught and they're being held near Oison. We dare not try to bust 'em out, so if they're not dead already, they're gonna get executed because these days the Kraut assholes don't let anyone go."

"Might they talk?" Miranda asked.

"Not those two. Yves Mournier and his cousin Etienne."

"There are too many Wehrmacht men stationed at Oison," Miranda said.

"Yeah, they got at least four-hundred there. Worse, if we did decide to raid the place, we'd need to plan everything for a week, or longer, and by then..." Andy rubbed her hands over her face. "They're as good as dead."

"And you have to let it go," Miranda said gently, but firmly. "If you were captured would you blame me for that?"

Andy shook her head and lit a cigarette.

"I know it should be enough to say that they knew the risks, but it isn't," Andy said.

"It never is," Miranda whispered. "I'll never forget the names and faces of the people who've died on my watch, but I don't blame myself. If I'd blamed myself even once, darling, I'd have quit this rotten business. And the worst of it, is carrying on and living with the risk of losing others along the way. Just remember that the risk is all the same: you risk as much as they do."

"We keep telling each other that, all of us," Andy noted.

"Because reminders are necessary," Miranda said.

Andy nodded and smoked in silence a while, and Miranda refrained from saying that it was almost a miracle that Andy hadn't lost any people until now. That was down to all the planning and preparation that she did. She was better at it even than Miranda, who'd been happy to learn a thing or two from her younger lover.

She hoped that Andy might learn a little now, about how to go on. There really wasn't a choice involved, though, not for people like Andy, and Miranda: they refused to fail, and so they'd go on, no matter what.

~ ~ ~


	5. Chapter 5

**_FIVE_ **

Andy was in the dairy, scrubbing the tiled walls, when Emily came rushing in, her face red– it was a warm day.

"It's on: invasion in two weeks or less," Emily said. "We just got the signal."

"Hot damn..." Andy murmured. "Okay. What've we gotta do?"

"More. More of everything we've already been doing," Emily said. "And Miranda wants to talk to you. I think it's about getting your friends out of Paris. I'll carry on here, and you run along, goose."

"Okay. This bucket's got a bleach solution in it. That one's just soapy."

"Soap first, bleach after," Emily said and took a brush from Andy.

Andy hurried out of the dairy and jogged to the chateau where she found Miranda making coordination lists in the kitchen. Andy helped with that. They needed to spread their actions out now, needed to have as many people as possible doing damage wherever they could, to anything that the Germans considered essential. Railroads and anything attached were first on the list, any kind of bridge came a close second; all forms of communication were listed last but not least.

Miranda told Andy that even Jeannette was out on a bicycle, passing the word for a big meeting tonight, in the woods at the north corner of Miranda's land.

"And tomorrow night there's going to be a major airdrop," Miranda said. "Thirty tons, perhaps: food and medical supplies meant to be stored to help us and any stray paratroopers."

"So we'll need extra people to help us with that," Andy said.

"We'll ask for them tonight... And it's time to fetch your friends, my darling," Miranda said. "I've sent word to François, and he'll be arranging for them to be packed and ready, tomorrow."

"They'll arrive in time to help us with that airdrop," Andy said with a grin.

"And so much for hospitality..." Miranda drawled.

Andy laughed and kissed Miranda and went back to her scrubbing job in the dairy. Emily smiled at Andy's broad grin, and Andy rubbed her face on her upper sleeve.

"Gonna be so good to see 'em again... Think they'll forgive me for letting 'em think I was dead all this time?"

"I think so. I mean, you're alive and that's really what matters," Emily said.

"Yeah," Andy said. And: "So how long do you think, after the invasion, till the Krauts get kicked out?"

"Hard to say. They're sure to put up a good fight," Emily said. "And along the coast... Gerry's well dug-in there. But if we can boot Gerry from the coast, then we can land more men. The harder we can push, the better, and if we land enough men, I think the Gerry brass will call for a withdrawal, that rather than lose of lot of men dead, wounded, or taken prisoner."

"So our job is to make it harder for the Krauts to get more men and supplies to the coast."

"In a nutshell," Emily said, nodding.

At the meeting that night, in the dark broken only by leaf-filtered moonlight and the glow of cigarette-ends, Miranda explained that theory. James Holt and Christian Thompson agreed with it, as did Major Ravitz. As Emily had said earlier, the plan now was to do more of the same, to step up operations both in intensity and regularity.

"We have to make their heads spin," Christian said in French. "Hit the bastards fast, hit them often, hit them everywhere we possibly can."

"If we can put the enemy in even a little disarray, it'll help our boys when they get here," Ravitz said. "Whatever you can do, we'll be grateful for it."

"Don't ever think it's not enough," Miranda said. "Every little bit will help. At the same time, don't take big risks for little gains. We're of no use to anyone if we're captured or killed. And it's time for this: if you're captured, make a big noise about me. Tell those bastards that I _will_ come after them if they don't let you go."

"We will try our best to get you free," Henri said. "Some of you are seeing strangers here tonight. These are men from as far away as Lyon, and even further than that, and more of them are on the way: they're all hard men, the best fighters in this whole region. From now until we kick out the _Boche_ , there will be five-hundred men closeby, in small groups, waiting for _la Renarde_ to tell them to gather together, to act as one force. Last week we got sixty Bren light machine-guns, twenty-five medium mortars, a few thousand grenades, extra Stens, extra ammunition. We also have forty-six captured _Panzerschrek_ bazookas with a lot of rockets, also captured _Panzerfaust_ rockets. Those five-hundred men will be able to do a lot of damage. So, like _la Renarde_ said, if you are caught, make the big noise about her and those men, and maybe the _Boche_ will be wise and let you go. If not, then we will come, and make them sorry for even being born."

There was a response to that, but not a cheer. Andy heard it as a growl, low and menacing, like that expected from a large predator who'd been rudely awoken from sleep. A shiver ran down Andy's spine, half-pleasure, half-fear. In a way, even though she'd been fighting in whichever way for months, the war had only just begun.

She looked around at those faces she could see, some of them strangers and others well-known, and still others whom Andy had only seen during the _vendange_ and the pruning sessions afterwards: people who lived in the area and could be counted on to arrive and work in the vineyards. Andy doubted that the Germans had ever thought about the country folk in France, and how they tended to club together to help each other.

That failure on the part of the Germans was one that would help to bring about their downfall, of that Andy was absolutely certain.

The next morning she dressed in the suit that Miranda loved so much, and which Andy had come to like a lot. It fit perfectly since Nigel had tailored the pants, vest, and jacket to accentuate her figure. While Andy was buttoning the vest over her neck-tie (she had several by now, and today she was wearing a ruby-red one), Miranda came in and slipped her arms around Andy's waist from behind. She rested her chin on Andy's shoulder and smiled at their reflection in the mirror.

"If we survive this war, I'm going to dress you in white-tie and take you to my club, and sit there smugly while many women and several men hate me for the good fortune I have in calling you mine."

"Sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself," Andy giggled.

"True, but you're also in a very good mood this morning," Miranda said and helped Andy into her jacket. She took up a red pocket-square that matched Andy's tie, and she folded it and slipped it into the breast pocket of the jacket. "That red compliments the grey of the suit... Oh, and that's new..."

"Thought you'd like it," Andy said and checked the fit of a flat-cap in the mirror. "Em found it, last time she was in Orléans. The tweed matches my suit perfectly."

"Mmm," said Miranda. "You'd better go before I tear off everything you're wearing."

Andy laughed and kissed Miranda for a while, just enough to make their hearts pound, and to make it hard to let go of each other.

"Shakespeare had it wrong," Miranda muttered. "Parting's more a torture than a sorrow. Hurry back, hmm?"

"Will do," Andy said and slipped her pistol into the holster under her left arm. If she lived to see the end of the war, Nigel would tailor the suit jacket again, to fit without that necessary bulge over her ribs. She looked at her watch and said, "By now François has smuggled my friends one-by-one out of Paris, and Ravitz has organized for some men to hang around in the little village where they're waiting. I'll be gone three hours, longest."

"All right. See you later, darling," Miranda said.

Andy kissed Miranda briefly and left the house. Outside Henri was waiting for her in the Renault and as they drove away, Andy started to get butterflies. She tapped her foot and lit a couple of cigarettes, giving Henri one.

"You're nervous? Why?" he asked.

"I'm a little worried they'll be mad at me," Andy admitted. "But I'm also bringing 'em back here, and I'll have to explain about me and Miranda, so..."

"Emily said one of these people used to be your boyfriend, no?"

"Yes."

"If he complains too much, just tell me, and I will talk to him," Henri said.

"Just talk?" Andy said doubtfully.

"You think he will risk a, uhh, smack from me, huh?" Henri drawled.

"Now you mention it, no," Andy said wryly. And: "I hope none of 'em think they'll be on vacation."

"Me and Alain will sort that out," Henri said and flicked ash out the window. After a while he said, "You're right for her, the way no-one else has been right."

"Even Alice?"

"I never met Alice, so I can't say. But my mother met Alice and Mama said about Alice, 'She will go home.' For you, France is home, no?"

"So much so that I'd like to talk my parents into coming here," Andy said in French. "I'd prefer for them to come here– I don't even want to visit America... I didn't know what patriotism was until the damn _Boche_ rolled into Paris, and I felt it then, like a fire: get the _fuck_ out of my _home_ , you invading sons-of-bitches."

"And now you're helping to kick them out," Henri said. "Emily says that she's very happy that _Angleterre_ is only just across the Channel, so she can come back here often... To fight for a country, that makes the strong bond, no?"

" _Oui_ ," Andy said quietly.

The ride to a small village, about thirty kilometers outside of Paris, was uneventful. Henri had stuck to secondary roads and they hadn't passed a single checkpoint, until they drove into the village itself: Ravitz's men stepped into the road and one leaned down to talk to Henri. He shot Andy a grin and gave her a respectful nod.

"I finally meet the bridge destroyer. Good work."

"Thanks," Andy chuckled. "So where are my friends?"

"In the rooms at the _auberge_. François is there with them."

"All right. Tell your pals I say thanks, okay?"

" _Oui_."

Henri drove on and Andy's butterflies got worse. She called them silly. After all, she'd escaped from a concentration camp, she'd faced a crazy Nazi colonel on a big-ass tank, and she'd been shot at, and had blown things to kingdom-come, and while some of that had frightened her a little or even a lot, none of it had given her a case of the nerves. When she got out of the car in front of the inn, she shook out her trembling hands and straightened her spine. Her friends might be a little mad at her, but she was pretty sure that none of them would try to kill her.

Inside the owner went upstairs to fetch François. He came down and greeted Henri with a handshake, and kissed both of Andy's cheeks.

"Dressed like that, half the women in Paris will go mad for you," François chuckled.

"As long as they're not _Vichyste_..." Andy drawled. "So?"

"I've told them only that _someone_ is coming to take them to a safe place. In Paris, all three were sharing a big _pension_ , to make the rent cheaper. When I went to them yesterday morning early, they made no arguments, and none of them went to work. The damned police and a few _milice_ swines had made some trouble for Nate last week, and this week Doug also had trouble. Lily was expecting trouble, too, but now she will have none. So _oui_ , they agreed with me that they should leave Paris. I helped them to pack their things, and some of those things I have stored for them in my basement; last night they stayed at my home."

"François, thank you," Andy said and kissed his cheek. She looked at the stairs, and said, "I think I should go up alone."

" _Oui_ ," François said. "The first door after the stairs, the smoking room."

Andy climbed the stairs and found that door standing ajar. She took a breath and pushed the door open.

"I'm not a ghost," she said and walked in.

Nate, Doug, and Lily stared at Andy for a moment before scrambling out of their seats, and Andy was engulfed in a group-hug. She'd had a little worry that Nate might've forgotten their break-up, but he was the first to step back and give her a little space. Lily and Doug stepped back, too, but Andy was still engulfed: in questions.

"Whoa, whoa," Andy chuckled and lit a smoke. She noted that her hands weren't quite steady, and that had to do with a certain fact: she'd chosen not to tell her friends sooner that she was all right. "Short version, okay? The Gestapo grabbed me and eventually sent me off to _KL_ Natzweiler. I managed to get outa there and spent nearly two months walking to a chateau owned by a woman known as _la Renarde d'Argente_ —"

"I've heard about her," Doug said. "The Krauts hate her."

"They hate me, too," Andy drawled. "Most recently, for blowing up their bridges. I hate it, but my _nom de guerre_ is _la Rabouilleuse_."

"You're _her?_ " Nate mumbled.

"Andy, wow," Lily said and laughed.

"Holy crap..." Doug mumbled.

"I got mad," Andy said with a shrug. "Add that to a ready supply of explosives, and it's bad news for the Krauts."

"Yeah," Doug said, laughing. "Sounds that way."

"So you've been sticking it to the Krauts for a while," Nate said. "I mean, figuring out how to blow up a bridge must take some practice, some experience."

"I managed to reach Miranda's place in September," Andy said, nodding.

"And you didn't send us word? Why?" Lily asked.

"Several reasons," Andy said. "Top of the list, telling you would've put you at risk. The way I got outa that camp... It's a long story, but it was covered up. As far as I know, not even the Gestapo were told that I'd escaped. But if they found out, if they heard you three talking about me being okay—and they were checking on you three, y'know that, right?"

"We figured as much, even before François told us to be careful," Doug said.

"Right. So... Yeah, I deliberately chose to keep you all in the dark," Andy said. "But it really was for the best. Still, I'm sorry for all the hurt you went through. Those are silly words; they can't really express how I feel, but I really am sorry about that."

"Y'know, for once I'm real grateful we can't send mail out of France," Doug drawled.

"I'm grateful we won't ever have to _personally_ deliver that letter we wrote to Andy's parents," Nate said.

"Oh God. Me, too," Lily said and impulsively hugged Andy again. "Look at _you_ , girl, and you feel like a rock. You fellas notice?"

"Blowing things up got rid of the baby-fat?" Nate asked.

"Uhh, no. That's down to almost two months in a fuckin' concentration camp, on starvation rations," Andy stated. "And I got even skinnier on the walk to the chateau. My hair had been shorn to the scalp. I couldn't show myself during the day, couldn't ask for food—whatever I got, I stole. And then I started getting lots of food, at Miranda's place, but there's also a lot of work there– cows and sheep and chickens, and the vineyards and an apple and pear orchard, kitchen garden and crop fields... You three are looking a little spare, but we'll fix that. I believe that dinner tonight is _boeuf bourguignon_."

"Can we go already?" Doug said.

Andy's answer was to laugh and walk out the room, and her friends grabbed their bags and followed at a jog. Downstairs Andy introduced them to Henri, and the five of them thanked François again and bid him goodbye.

In the car Lily asked if there was a reason that they were being taken away from Paris.

"I mean, more than just getting hassled there."

"The invasion's happening soon," Andy said, and she turned in her seat to look at her pals. "We got the signal yesterday: two weeks or less. Having our boys here... Before they get to Paris, things could get pretty nasty there."

"Especially because many partisans are making more trouble for the _Boche_ now," Henri said. "We are supposed to wait until the next signal that will say that the invasion starts in forty-eight hours, but we know better than the Allied generals in London. We know better even than de Gaulle."

"Much better than him," Andy drawled. "I think he's got this weird idea that there's a couple-million fighters here."

"Organized fighters? Eighty-five-thousand, or only a few more," Henri said. "We have many more volunteers who will do anything except fight—this is understandable, because some of them are mothers, or grandfathers, or men who were maimed during the war. But even with them we aren't two-million. Less than a hundred-thousand."

"That's a scary-small number," Lily mumbled.

Doug and Nate said nothing, but their nervous expressions said a whole lot.

"But there's good news," Henri said. "We have many Free French soldiers waiting to come here."

"Couple-hundred thousand of them, maybe more," Andy said. "In the meanwhile, we're making trouble, a lot of trouble now and we'll keep it up. Our hope is to hit the Krauts so hard and fast and in so many places that they just won't have time to fix anything before the invasion begins. You three are probably gonna be helping Nigel. He's made it his mission in life to steal miles and miles of telephone line."

"Steal it? Why doesn't he just cut it?" Nate asked.

"I can splice a cut phone line in seven minutes," Andy said. "Bet your ass that a Kraut sparky can splice it in three."

"But if the line is stolen, then the sparky has to find more line," Henri said. "For the _Boche_ , the supplies of everything are very short. You see?"

"Yeah," was the collective response from the backseat.

"So we're finally gonna get to stick it to the Krauts," Nate said. "I like it. Whadya say, you two?"

"Oh, I'm in," Doug said. "Definitely."

"Me three," Lily said, nodding. "I reckon I'd be a good phone line thief. And hey, fellas: imagine writing that in our resumés, huh?"

"Yeah," Doug chortled. "Quote: 'Stole Kraut phone lines for the war-effort in France.'"

"Nice ring to it," Nate said with a grin.

"I like your friends," Henri told Andy, and he was laughing. "I just wish I could see their new bosses' faces one day."

"Yeah me, too," Andy giggled. She cleared her throat and said, "Okay. Listen up. For now, Miranda is pretty much your new boss. Everyone in our area minds her, does exactly what she says, and if they don't, she cuts 'em right out. This is a woman who's been shot twice, and the last time was an assassination attempt. You'll respect her, obey her, and if you don't, before she says anything about it, I'll kick your asses. We clear on that?"

The response amounted to mumbled affirmative answers, and all three of the people on the backseat looked at Andy rather owlishly. Henri snorted a laugh.

"Now they meet you, really, for the first time," he said. " _La Renarde_ , she's a general. But Andy, she's like a colonel. She has her own team of saboteurs, and just a whisper from her and they do it, _fast_. When we start to fight the _Boche_ in real battles, many men will choose to follow Andy. They say about her that she's like ice– always calm, never panics, and like Miranda, Andy has the very quick reactions."

"You're quick or you're dead," Andy said with a shrug. "And I've come to accept that quick is a whole heap better'n dead: I wouldn't be sitting here now if I wasn't quick. Being quick is all that might get me through this war alive."

"You could leave the fighting to the men," Nate said.

"Excuse me?" Andy mumbled, blinking.

"Be very careful," Henri told Nate. He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "You are that close to being punched in the face. Don't make her fists more itchy than they are even now."

"But I'm just raising a reasonable alternative," Nate said, frowning.

"No, a _reasonable alternative_ is to say, 'Leave the fighting to _someone else_ ,'" Andy snapped.

"Right," Lily said. "Soon's you say 'Leave it to _men_ ' you make it sound like Andy and other women shouldn't be fighting at all."

"We would be in big trouble without the women helping us here," Henri stated. "One in seven of us with a gun, is a woman—without them, we would be a seventh less. To say that they shouldn't fight... That's a bad insult."

"Okay. Good thing I'm a quick learner," Nate said. He added sincerely: "Sorry, Andy."

"As long as you try to see things as they are and not as you'd like 'em to be, we're all right," Andy said and lit a smoke.

"So what else should we know?"

"Oh, a few things," Andy said, and felt her face reddening. "But one's really important."

"Very important," Henri said, and Andy could tell that he was struggling to keep a straight face. "You must listen, and then think carefully before speaking."

"Oh brother," said Nate.

"Color me real suspicious," Lily said.

"Uh-huh," Doug agreed.

"I won't keep you in suspense," Andy said. "Miranda's my lover."

"I thought you said she's the boss?"

"The big boss, at that."

"Nah, wait: Andy said she's _our_ boss," Nate said.

"And I said that Miranda is a general," Henri said. "Andy and _la Renarde_... They're both Jews, both women that men should obey first and like later. I've known Miranda since I was a boy, and I told Andy that she's better for Miranda than anyone else. No-one who's known Miranda for a long time argues with that."

"Hell, that's the bottom line," Doug said, his expression thoughtful.

"Reckon," Nate said, nodding.

"You're not mad?" Lily blurted.

"Mad about what?" Nate said. "Me and Andy split, and then for months I thought she was dead. That helped the... divide along. Though I gotta say, if she was with another fella that might sting a little—then again, I dunno even about that. She's alive and she's happy? Who the hell am I to say anything against that, huh?"

"Someone did a lot of growing up..." Andy said and gave Nate a smile.

"And I kinda like it," Nate said, grinning.

"Then you will do more growing up," Henri said. "You have to like it for it to become a habit."

"I can see myself telling my kids that, one day," Doug said.

"Just not too soon," Lily said.

" _Oui_ , first they must be children, and enjoy it," Henri said.

"And hopefully they'll be born and raised during a long peace in which they can enjoy it," Andy said. "Miranda's got two girls. I haven't met 'em yet. They're in Scotland, and hopefully they're having a little fun there."

She gave Henri's thigh a surreptitious nudge and he smoothly changed the subject to operations around the chateau. Smart: that explained neatly to Andy's friends why Miranda had sent her kids away, and it left no room for further questions. Andy joined the conversation and helped to explain a few things, but she felt herself a little at a distance, and noted to herself that this sort of thing tended to happen whenever Miranda's girls were mentioned, or when she thought about them. She supposed that it had to do with feeling a little guilty: she was spending so much time with their mother, while they were far away. It was silly, Andy knew, but it was also a rather human reaction to that particular set of circumstances. It wasn't anything to fix, in other words, and Andy let it ride.

They returned to the chateau within Andy's guessed three hours and this was a brief stop, to meet Miranda. Lily would be staying at the chateau, but Nate and Doug would be bunking at Alain's place over the hill, and he was here now, the first to greet the group. Andy left Henri to handle introductions and she went inside to fetch Miranda. She found her in the kitchen, busy with lunch.

"Back," Andy said and hugged Miranda from behind. "Everything's okay."

"Good," Miranda said and wiped her hands. "It's up to you, darling, but Nigel said that the boys are welcome to share his room– there's a double-bunk in there, and two empty footlockers."

"If he's okay with it, that's fine."

"I think they should be here," Jeannette said. "It just makes meal questions easier to answer."

"True," Andy said. "But remember that Nate's a chef."

"Then I learn new things, and I can teach him, too," Jeannette said with a shrug.

"All righty. Where are Nigel and Em?"

"Hoeing weeds with a rabble of teenagers," Miranda said and kissed Andy briefly. "Let's go and meet your friends."

Outside Miranda dealt with her own introductions, and Andy hung back and smirked, seeing her first meeting with Miranda mirrored in her three friends: backs straight, all three using a very polite tone-of-voice. Andy had a theory that only stupid people didn't pick up on the fact that one ought to respect Miranda.

"So these two are going to stay here," Alain said of Doug and Nate.

"There's room," Miranda said with a nod. "If they get on my nerves I can always banish them to a barn."

"Make them sleep with the chickens," Alain said with a grin. "I'll see you all tonight. Andy, do these three know how much work there is tonight?"

"They're gonna find out," Andy said, laughing.

"What've we gotten into?" Lily demanded.

"Big airdrop tonight," Henri said. "We're all going to have lunch, and then rest until dinner, rest again after that until ten. Then the work starts."

"What kinda stuff's being dropped?" Nate asked.

"Medicines and food," Miranda said. "We won't be distributing those items too widely. There'll be several stores set up here and there, meant to help any paratroopers that end up separated from their sticks."

" _Sticks?_ " Lily queried.

"A group of paratroopers jumping from a single plane is a stick," Andy explained.

"I learned a new collective noun," Doug drawled.

"You'll be learning a lot, hopefully in a real short space of time," Andy said. "Henri and others are gonna rest after lunch, but I gotta get you three acquainted with the Sten Mark Two."

"A-what?" Nate asked.

"It's a submachine-gun. There are three with your names on 'em."

"I think the only appropriate thing to say here is, crap just got real," Doug mumbled.

"Indeed," Miranda drawled. "But for now, come inside and settle in a little before lunch."

The three new people were introduced to Jeannette, and Andy showed the men into Nigel's room. She told them that they'd be sharing with someone twenty years their senior, and said that they should mind whatever rules Nigel set. Nate and Doug agreed with that, and Andy showed Lily into the room she'd be sharing with Emily.

"You'll like her," Andy said, certain. "She doesn't take shit, but Em's got that typically dry British sense of humor."

"I'm a big fan of that," Lily said.

"Yeah, I know... I missed you so much," Andy admitted.

"Oh, I missed you, too, sugar," Lily said and hugged Andy. "Just so glad you're okay. And sorry about your hair."

"I learned to like it short," Andy said. "And Miranda likes it short, too, so..."

" _Uh_ -huh," Lily chortled while quickly packing things into her side of a closet. "That's got 'Forever' stamped all over it. But shoot, what are your parents gonna say?"

"I... I don't care," Andy said flatly. "I mean, I hope they don't blow up over it, but if they do that's their problem, not mine... I didn't know it was possible to love anyone the way I love her. It's not a crazy, bubbly thing. It's quiet and... certain, like a huge rock in the middle of a field: the plow gets steered around it, and maybe people would like to shift it, but only fools would waste their time."

"Might get some of those fools trying," Lily said reasonably.

"Yeah, I know," Andy said, and she frowned at Lily's small collection of shoes. "None of those are gonna work out here. We better go see what we've got available."

"You get clothes and stuff like that airdropped, too?"

"We asked for some, and whatever Miranda asks for, she gets."

Lily was outfitted with a pair of boots, a couple pairs of trousers, and three shirts, and Henri sent one of the 'weed gang' kids to call his pal with the tractor to help make Lily's boots wearable. Before that happened, however, lunch was served. More introductions, to Emily and Nigel, and Andy informed her friends that they'd be learning a lot more names soon enough.

After lunch, the three newbies were introduced to their new 'best friends.' All three held their unloaded Stens rather nervously while Andy demonstrated burst-fire at a target twenty-five meters away, in the long tunnel joining three wine-cellars.

"On automatic, short bursts—pull the trigger, let it go, and pull it again," Andy said. "Don't bother aiming at a target further away than twenty-five yards or so. This little lever here, push it, and your weapon now fires one shot at a time. You can aim further than twenty-five on that setting, up to fifty yards. Also, note how I'm holding this thing: overhand grip on the barrel shroud, with the magazine resting over my wrist. You can also grip the barrel shroud palm-up, but use that grip only in the single fire setting, okay?"

"When you aim it like a rifle?" Doug asked.

"Yup. When it's on auto, the recoil can make the Sten get away from you. The overhand grip keeps her under control. Big important rule: do _not_ grip this weapon by the magazine, because you can damage the way the rounds feed in, and then the gun's fucked. That might cost you your life, or it might get someone else killed. Okay?"

The three newbies nodded, round-eyed.

"Good," Andy said. "Lemme show you how to load a magazine, and then you can step up one at a time to get a feel for shooting."

"How many times have you given a lesson like this?" Lily asked.

"I was about to ask the same thing," Nate said.

"Answer: I forget," Andy said with a shrug. "I started teaching weapon usage in October, around a month after I first got here... Doug, you mentioned rifles. Any experience there?"

"Air rifles while I was a Boy Scout. Got my Marksmanship Merit Badge first time on the range. I never could figure out why other fellas couldn't hit the target. Coach said I was a natural shot, whatever the hell that means."

"It means you need to pay attention and learn how to use this thing," Andy said, waving the Sten. "And then you need to report to Emily so she can introduce you to one of the shiny new M-one Garand rifles that fell out the sky."

"Oh," said Doug. "Okay? But I don't think I can kill anyone, Andy."

"Just shoot 'em in the ass," Andy drawled. "You shoot a Kraut in the ass with that thirty-aught-six round and that'll put 'em down, and down means 'out of the fight.' That's all we need."

"I can do that," Doug said.

"I wonder how many fellas in uniform intentionally shoot Krauts in the ass..." Nate mused.

"Never mind that," Andy said firmly. "Pay attention. This is the Austen Magazine Filler tool, real easy to use..."

Around a half-hour later her three friends were fully familiar with the Sten, and Andy was somewhat confident that they wouldn't shoot anyone or anything accidentally. As with everyone else she'd taught, she'd bring them into this tunnel twice more, and after that (as with everyone else she'd taught), Andy would send up a prayer and hope that her coaching was good enough.

"At least none of them seem to be regarding those new best friends as toys," Miranda said, while watching Nate, Lily, and Doug traipsing after Emily. "Given some of your complaints about him, I was worried that Nate, in particular, might be something of an immature annoyance."

"He's grown up a helluva lot since I last saw him," Andy said. "It figures, I guess. I mean, he's never been short on smarts, and these days smart people are looking around and seeing stuff the way it is, instead of the way they'd like it to be."

"But even the smartest of us would still like circumstances to be different," Miranda said.

"People who like things as they are right now, are all certifiably insane," Andy stated.

"Indeed," Miranda said with a short, humorless laugh. After a pause: "I'd like a nap. Join me?"

"Brilliant idea," Andy said and yawned.

But their bedroom door ended up locked, and the drapes were drawn, and instead of napping they made love in whisper-broken silence, nominally aware of the wakeful midday house, the occasional scrap of external conversation, footfalls that sometimes passed the door. All of that, and everyone it belonged to, was outside, distanced, ignored.

Andy had never known any moments more decadent than these, and she wondered aloud as to the source of the idea that decadence was a bad thing.

"Puritans," said Miranda, and she blew a smoke ring. "We can blame a good deal on _them_... I think it's rather obvious that I never belonged in America."

"I dunno how we'd manage this in America," Andy said and stole the cigarette.

"We wouldn't, my love... Have you noticed: you never give me any endearments."

"None seem to fit, but I might borrow that one– my love. I like it, and you are."

Miranda murmured her approval, and Andy kissed the corner of her smile, and dipped her head lower, to kiss the scar below Miranda's collarbone: just an inch or two lower, an inch or so to Miranda's right... "In-and-out" Miranda had said many times, but if that would-be assassin had been a shorter man—Andy stopped those thoughts right there. Only the facts were important: he'd been tall and the natural arc of his arm had raised the revolver too high, and Miranda had had strength and adrenaline enough to draw and use a stiletto in retaliation: he'd been made dead as a doornail, and Miranda was still very much alive.

"I sure hope we don't buy the farm, either of us," Andy blurted.

"As do I, darling," Miranda said quietly. She was silent a while, then said, "But I wrote out my will this morning. I know you'll handle it, so I made you executor. Alain will manage this place until my girls come of age, when they can decide what they want to do with their share. I've left a fifth to Nigel and a fifth to you; my girls claim a fifth each, and the final fifth goes to Alain and Jeannette."

"Okay," Andy murmured and rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

She didn't need to say any more, and didn't want to say any more. Andy had helped Emily to write out her will last week sometime, but it had only been signed and witnessed and made official this morning. Miranda had signed as a witness, and that had probably poked her into setting out her own last will and testament. Andy felt that she didn't need a will. After all, she had nothing to leave behind. It struck her that there was a certain freedom in that knowledge, though one rather frightening. It was the sort of freedom that could easily lead to recklessness; it was something to remember and guard against.

So Andy chose to see Miranda's will, and her part as executor, as something like insurance: it would keep her honest, make her feel more responsible. Andy didn't have a legacy of any sort, but if necessary, she was to stand as guardian of Miranda's legacy.

"I'll handle it, like you said," Andy whispered.

"But I'll have you know that I fully intend to tear that document to shreds, just as soon as we've given the damned Germans the boot," Miranda said.

"Still, you've got my word: I'll handle it," Andy said.

Miranda nodded and settled her head on Andy's chest. Andy reached down awkwardly for the sheet and dragged it up.

"Jeannette will wake us," Miranda said, half a mumble, half-asleep. "I love you, darling."

"Love you, too," Andy said and kissed the top of Miranda's head.

Andy lay awake for some time before sleep stole her away for a while, but it took her to scary places, half-memory, half-fear. Miranda woke her out of the nightmares and asked about them. Usually Andy could describe them, but this afternoon her memory of them was faint and mixed-up.

"Probably the same old stuff," Andy said. "I'd love to know if the bad dreams are gonna fuck off sometime."

"I've noticed that you're more likely to have them if you're worried," Miranda said.

"I don't plan on worrying much, after we've kicked out the Krauts."

"Well, there you have it," Miranda said, teasing gently. "We'll kick out the Germans and hopefully the nightmares will be kicked out, too. Until then..."

"We'll try napping again," Andy drawled. "Can I tuck up behind you?"

Miranda's answer was a purr, and she rolled onto her side. She wriggled backwards, meeting Andy around halfway, and as per usual, Miranda fell asleep almost at once. Not so Andy, who decided not to give those damn nightmares another way in.

Lying here was restful, peaceful, for all that her thoughts were not. Within the next two weeks the invasion would begin, and that just had to be the beginning of the end for Germany's part in the war. It would most certainly be most of the end for the German Occupation of France. People like Andy had been doing so much damage to railways and communications that the Germans were often found to be unable to effect proper repairs. There were, for instance, two major railway lines leading to and from Paris which hadn't been repaired in more than a week, and given further damage planned on those two lines (insult to injury), Andy doubted that the Germans would get around to repairing any of the damage at all. By now they just couldn't afford it.

The rumor mill wasn't the best way to get news, but rumor had it that these days German soldiers were stripping their dead before burying them, and the dead men's helmets, uniforms, boots, and regulation sundries like ammo pouches were being handed out as replacement items. Likewise, they were taking the boots from dead and captured enemy soldiers.

The irony in all of that had to do with the fact that the Nazis were swimming in money, but they couldn't spend a lot of it. They had almost no supply sources, when it came to raw materials. It had been grimly satisfying to Andy to sit at a safe distance and through binoculars watch German soldiers and forced laborers pick up even small scraps of metal at the site of Andy's last train-busting operation. That rumor mill had it that Germany was casting cannon barrels out of mangled railway tracks, wrecked locomotives, and any other bits of scrap iron. One of Jack Basson's teams had scored a vital hit to Germany: they'd blown up a train with upwards of twenty freight-cars packed with scrap metal. The next night, as insurance, they'd used Andy's bridge-wrecking method to destroy the biggest bridge carrying that particular line, which led into Germany.

As the day became late and the light in the room lessened, Miranda stirred into wakefulness, and Andy kissed the nape of her neck.

"You didn't get a wink, did you?" Miranda murmured.

"Nah. Thinking," Andy said.

Miranda shifted and Andy rolled onto her back, allowing Miranda to fit herself into her lover's side.

"Tell me?"

"I think we need some teams focused on every road- and rail-bridge that leads out of France," Andy said. "Sure, our boys are on their way, but they're not gonna boot out the Krauts on the day they arrive. If we can make it hard for the Krauts to get scrap and whatever other raw materials out of France to Germany, we'll hurt 'em. It'll also make it hard for more Kraut soldiers to get into France– they'll have to march in, also march out. We'll slow 'em down."

"Mmm," said Miranda.

She got up at once and dressed, and left the room. Andy was almost dressed by the time Miranda returned.

"Henri's sent out runners; Emily's coding a message," Miranda said. "Your plan will be put into action soon."

Andy's response was a simple nod, and she helped Miranda to make the bed. Some time later, instead of staying to help with the airdropped supplies, Andy, Michel, and their men set out to smash a section of railway line. There wasn't a bridge anywhere along this twenty-six-kilometer stretch of line, and that was a pity, but tonight a hundred meters of track was blown to hell.

"Good luck fixing that, Krauts," Andy muttered while walking away.

"Never. It's fucked until we fix it after the war," Michel chuckled wickedly.

"I want that job," said one of their men.

"Hell me, too," Andy said with a grin. She looked at her watch in the moonlight, and said, "C'mon. We can get back to the chateau and lend a hand there."

And their hands were needed. There were more than seventy local people helping to collect and offload the airdropped supplies, but that still seemed too few because more than thirty tons had been dropped tonight. As with the first big drop, Miranda organized breakfast for everyone. Excepting the chateau residents, who'd eat last, they all ate in shifts, because there was still a lot of work: all of the supplies had to be organized by type and packed away. Miranda had, during the last week, moved all the racks of wines aging in their bottles to other cellars, and all the newly-dropped supplies were being packed into a single cellar.

"I should have thought of this sooner," Miranda muttered.

"I could've thought of it, too," Emily said.

"Same," Andy said. She placed a box of penicillin powder packets on a stack of others, and said to Lily, "Start a new stack. We can only stack these five-high, or the boxes collapse."

"Here?" Lily asked.

"Nope, just park it right in front of that other stack... Hey, Doug. Careful, or we'll all get sucked into that yawn."

"Sorry," he chuckled and covered his next yawn. "Someone said we've got more work like this tonight."

"Not quite the same," Miranda said while scribbling on a clipboard. "We'll be packing things out and sending them to various locations."

"And before tonight, there's work to do, as well," Andy said.

"The cows won't milk themselves," Emily said, looking at her watch. "And we'd better get over to the dairy, Andy."

"Yeah. Lily? You and Doug find Nate, then get Henri to show you how to feed and water the chickens. We'll collect eggs later."

Andy followed Emily even while Lily was mumbling "Okay." Lily, Nate, and Doug were likely to be exhausted by the time noon rolled around, but enormous airdrops weren't an everyday thing. For all Andy knew, last night's drop might've been the last, or the second-last.

"Second-last, I think," Emily said, milking a cow on the other side of the aisle. The cow stamped a hind foot, nearly upsetting the milk-pail. "Watchit, you, or I'll put on the kicking strap."

The cow turned her head and blinked innocently at Emily, and Andy snorted a laugh.

"That was a 'Who, _me?_ ' look if ever there was one," Andy giggled.

"She's a right character, this one," Emily chuckled. After a pause: "I've started thinking all silly, goose. Things like, I'm going to miss the cows."

"Well, when you come visit I'll make sure to rope you into milking."

"Do," Emily drawled while moving to the next cow. "And I _will_ be back, as regularly as I can manage it. But I'm also looking forward to going home. We don't have a dairy, but I'm going to talk Father into building one. We'll have Jersey cows, I should think."

"Those big, liquid eyes..." Andy said. "They're so pretty, and fine-boned. And what about chickens?"

"Oh, we have chickens already, but not great big barns of them. I'd not like that... Although there's bound to be a poultry shortage in Blighty, after the war, so if I want a business that pays, well, I know how to go about it, don't I?"

"Uh-huh. Miranda's pretty sure that after the war she could easily expand her chicken-and-egg operation and make more money off it than she does off of the wine and brandy."

"That's saying something. But d'you think she'd take that option?"

"Dunno," Andy said and wiped the udder of her next cow. "If she did, she'd have to buy more land. I think she'd prefer to use more land for olives, something she's wanted to mess with for a while."

"I've read somewhere that it takes from four to twelve years for olives to bear, so if she wants olives, she'd better get started."

"She's probably thinking along those lines."

"I certainly would," Emily said and walked off with a full pail of milk.

Andy's pail was just about full, too. Rather than start a fresh cow she carried the pail into the chilly settling room. Emily had set out six clean settling pans on a low concrete platform and Andy's pail filled five of those. She put them on a shelf and set out another five to replace the ones she'd used. There was a cream separator sitting unused in a barn, because it had a stripped gear– that had happened four days after the Germans rolled into Paris, and since then Miranda hadn't been able to find a used or new one. Until the old one could be repaired, separation trays worked well: left to stand, the cream floated to the top of the milk and was skimmed off. Andy had been told it was a lot of extra work, but seeing as she'd never used the separator, she didn't complain.

She was busy milking her last cow when Nate came into the dairy.

"There'll be three of us milking this evening," he said. "Haven't done it in a while, but I'll get back into it."

"Swell," Andy said. "Eighteen cows, so with three milkers that's six cows each."

"As opposed to nine," Emily drawled.

"Makes for strong hands," Nate said. "They got milking machines now, they work with vacuum pressure. My parents have got one by now, I bet... All done?"

"Yeah," Andy said. "C'mon and I'll show you the tray system we've got."

In the settling room she let Nate fill the trays and pack them on shelves. They set out another six for Emily's last pail.

"You don't have a separator?" Nate asked.

"Busticated, stripped a gear, I was told," Andy said. "How're you three holding up?"

"Lily's hanging on for breakfast, but after that I bet she'll hit her bed hard. Doug's doing all right—y'know what he's like with new stuff."

"He'll potter around until he practically passes out," Andy chuckled. "Miranda's gonna call a mandatory rest period after egg-collection, though, so try get him to sleep, okay? We got more work tonight."

"Yeah, I'll tell him... Gotta say, you don't look even a little tired," Nate said.

"It's all a big act," Andy said.

"Same here," Emily said as she walked in. Nate took her pail, and Emily said, "Oh, ta for that. Cluckies all fed?"

"Yup," Nate said while carefully pouring milk. "Y'know, it's amazing– we've been here less than twenty-four hours, but that's a whole day without seeing a fuckin' Kraut. Lots of work here, but it's still like we're on vacation."

"I always feel that way after I'm back from spying on something or other in Paris," Emily said.

"A break from worrying as much," Andy said. "Out here you can get into this weird little space where you almost forget there's a war on. But try to stop that from happening. We can only do any good if we're focused on helping our side win this goddamn war."

"I hear that," Nate said while rinsing the pail. He dried his hands and said, "When our fellas get here, I'm gonna sign up to fight."

"You can ask Ravitz, our OSS bigshot: it doesn't work that way," Andy said.

"You're almost certain to get a ticket out of this country," Emily said. "But your brass insists that recruits are trained away from whichever combat zone. Any Americans who come here will have been stationed in Blighty for months. If you want to fight under an American banner, for a certain value of fighting, then your best bet is to speak to Ravitz, and he'll probably get you some rush training and put you to work for the OSS. But there's no chance that you'll be directly absorbed into whichever fighting unit that comes here: American military policy forbids it."

"All right," Nate said thoughtfully. "So what's your advice, then?"

"You could sign on with the French," Andy said. "When the Krauts are kicked out, I'm pretty sure that the Free French will support a foreign legion."

"That's an almost ancient French tradition," Emily said. "It's not going anywhere, and yes, I agree with Andy: the French will be happy to have you."

"Then that's what I'll do," Nate said firmly. "I've been thinking about it a long time. I feel I have to, y'know?"

"Yeah, I know," Andy said quietly. She knuckled Nate's chin, and said, "Way to grow up, Nate. I'm just sorry it had to happen this way."

Nate's response was a shrug, his expression set and firm, and all the youth was gone from his face. Seeing that made Andy's heart ache a little, even though she knew it was beyond time for the man in him to step to the fore.

"Let's go get some breakfast," Andy said. "After that we'll make short work of the eggs."

"Do people just come and buy them?" Nate asked.

"Mostly. Some also get delivered," Emily said.

At the dining table, Andy had to keep nudging Lily awake and once she'd finished off her meal, Miranda ordered Lily to bed. Andy went along and made sure that Lily actually got into bed, and just as well: she fell asleep twice, once on her feet while undressing.

"Sorry I can't help with more stuff," Lily mumbled.

"You'll be able to help when you wake up," Andy said. "Sleep tight."

"Mphh," said Lily, and she snored.

Andy giggled and tiptoed out of the room. In the dining room she helped herself to more roast beef and another helping of potato and onion hash (which was the only American dish that Miranda had hung on to, and that only because her girls loved it). Andy took her seat and after a couple of mouthfuls she easily joined the conversation– planning talk for the next few days. Doug asked what kind of action would be expected of everyone here, during the invasion.

"Mostly more of the same, a lot of sabotage," Miranda said. "If the Germans manage to organize a proper front, and it's pushed back by our men, then the fighting might reach us here. And that would be somewhat disastrous for the Germans. At present, I have a five-hundred-man battalion encamped in the area. All I need do to treble it, is whistle."

"Whoa..." Nate mumbled, blinking.

"No-no. The command will be _Go_ ," Miranda said. "We have the sort of armaments to act as an anti-armor unit, or we can deploy our mortars and act as mobile light artillery. Every man of that current five-hundred is a grenadier. We also have sixty light machine-gun teams. Oh, and we have Betsy."

"Who's Betsy?" Doug asked.

"A Vickers Medium Machine-gun mounted on a truck," Emily said with a grin.

"Ooh..." said Nate.

"Hands off, you," Emily said. "She's _mine_."

"You need a loader," Nigel pointed out.

"That's true, yes," Emily said. And to Nate: "You can be the loader."

"Pretty responsible job," Andy said before Nate could reply. "You gotta spot, too, and pick off or at least harass anyone trying to flank the truck."

"Then maybe someone with more experience would be better?" Nate said.

"Perfect answer," Miranda said quietly.

"Uh-huh," Andy said and had the last mouthful of her breakfast. She had a sip of coffee and said to Henri, "I think you should introduce Nate to Pierre."

" _Oui? Bon_ ," Henri said simply: _good_.

"What's that gonna entail?" Nate asked.

"Sneaking around," Andy said. "And how to get good at it, fast."

"Pierre and his team are one of several groups who are our scouts," Miranda said.

"You stick with Pierre," Emily said, wagging her fork. "And it'll set you up with a guarantee that you'll fight for the French."

"If you are good enough, no-one will refuse your service, if you have worked with Pierre," Henri said. "He was a _sergent-chef_ , like your master sergeant, in the French Army before the surrender."

"He specialized in reconnaissance," Miranda said. "He's properly called a _chasseur_ , a hunter."

"Okay," Nate said firmly. "I'll work with him."

"You've just agreed to sleep in the woods," Nigel drawled. "I don't think Pierre's slept under a roof in more than a year."

"Good luck, buddy," Doug chortled.

"Thanks," Nate said, his expression wryly amused.

"But before you get to meet Pierre, we have eggs to collect," Andy said.

There was a bunch of kids already busy with that task and each would be sent home with six eggs and a handful of raisins. Andy got straight to it, gently slipping her hand below a resting hen: two warm eggs went into her hay-lined basket. She noticed Miranda talking to an older boy, and Andy knew what that was about. He was old enough to be at risk of the Germans sending him off to work in Germany, or worse, trying to recruit him into the SS Charlemagne (1st French) regiment.

"So what now, for that kid?" Doug asked. And: "Nice chicken, don't peck me."

"She won't, but watch out for that red-and-black one, there," Andy said. "And that boy's gonna go into hiding. The _Maquisards_ around here will take him in. Miranda's probably told him that she'll talk to his mom."

"Mothers are a problem?"

"Sometimes. His will be, cos his brother was killed a few months back, and that kid's all she's got left. Husband's dead, too."

"Shit," Doug muttered.

"War's shitty all right," Andy agreed. "She's got no choice but to let that boy go, cos if she doesn't, the chances of him surviving that trip to Germany, and the hard labor he'll do, are next to nothing."

"His chances away from that?"

"Pretty good, especially now," Andy said. "Our boys get here, and the Krauts will be outa France by the end of the year, latest."

"You sound real sure of that," Doug said.

"I am, cos if you look at a map, the Krauts will have a lot to worry about. If they try stick it out here, then some of our Allied fellas in Italy can be sent to bite 'em in the ass while our boys here are taking potshots at the Krauts' heads."

"Classic pincer move," Doug said.

"Uh-huh. End of the year, or before that," Andy said.

Andy was certain of that much, but she had no idea what would happen next, here in France. She longed for the day of liberation but also feared its arrival, because it would herald, undoubtedly, a great deal of civil violence. The _Vichyste_ had a huge debt to pay, and many would pay with their lives. And Andy still worried about the innocents, women in particular, who'd be accused of collaboration even though they'd never done anything to deserve violence. But just like many others, Andy had no idea who those women were, and she had no clue how to help them prove their innocence. As Miranda had said once, the folk who had helped those women would have to speak for them, and all Andy could do was hope like hell that that would be the case.

After egg-collecting, Andy managed to get a couple of hours sleep, but it seemed that those two hours were all she could manage. Rather than trying to lie still so as not to disturb Miranda, Andy got up and dressed, and she went outdoors to enjoy the sunshine that occasionally blasted through high, scudding clouds. Those clouds were piling up in the west, over the Channel, and Andy muttered to herself about another Channel storm before nightfall.

Arthur had explained how those worked—he'd been a teacher before the war. With the Channel being so narrow, the water warmed quite quickly, encouraging evaporation, and from that clouds were formed, and from clouds came buckets of rain. The unseasonable winds were something that Arthur couldn't explain, but he suspected that it had to do with strong winds blowing off the North Pole: when the cold air hit the warm air over the Channel, that created more clouds, and turbulence: storms, high winds, and a lot of rain. Andy hoped that the winds out of the north would let up for a while, just a little while.

It was the third of June, and it was high time to kick the Germans out of France.

~ ~ ~

They'd heard the signal broadcast yesterday and again last night, the first stanza of Paul Verlaine's _Chanson d'automne_ : the invasion would begin in forty-eight hours. But at six a.m, while busy helping Jeannette with breakfast, Miranda heard what sounded like distant thunder in the west. She wiped her hands and went outside and listened intently.

"That's not thunder. That's artillery..." she murmured to herself. There was also a faint rumbling, and she looked up at the clouds in time to see many small olive drab circles with little dangling dots beneath them. "Henri!"

Henri came running and Miranda pointed out the waves of falling paratroopers.

"How far away will they land? Fifteen kilometers?" she said.

"Maybe, and further, because they were dropped very high, and the wind will push them," Henri said, already walking away, fast. "I'll send out people. Those men were dropped too far inland, and they must be told."

Miranda went back inside, and wondered how many other men had been pushed off-course, or had been failed by pilots who were unsure of which part of the map lay below those dense clouds. She cursed the clouds quietly and made hasty sandwiches, telling Jeannette that she was going out with Henri.

Outside, Alain was helping to load two footlockers full of medical gear into the bed of a truck. Someone else handed a bundle of pre-cut staves up to Alain; those were splints for broken legs, and could be cut shorter for broken arms.

Emily and Andy emerged from the dairy just as Miranda climbed into the truck.

"Get word out that we all have to be on our guard," Miranda told Emily. "Then your post is at the radio."

"Right. I'll send word that any stray lambs should make their way here."

"Any special duty for me?" Andy asked.

"Get your crew together and go spy on our German friends– gauge reactions," Miranda said over the roar of the starting truck. "See you later."

She nodded to Henri and he drove off. They were taking a risk, going out in broad daylight, but those paratroopers were probably in need of help, and Miranda wasn't about to sit at home and do nothing.

Along the way they had to ask if people had seen the parachutes, and where they'd landed. Time and time again they were pointed north-east, and eventually a young girl told Miranda that she'd seen men land not far away. Less than a kilometer along the road one of the men in the back of the truck slapped the roof of the cab, and Henri slowed and stopped.

Miranda hopped out, Sten in her hands, and followed two jogging men to a stand of trees: an unfortunate trooper was dangling from his parachute lines. They thought he might be dead, but that turned out to be an act. He'd peeped between his eyelashes, and on seeing that the people below him weren't German soldiers, he opened both eyes and grinned. Miranda's men formed up below the trooper, and he cut the lines and dropped into a safe catch, instead of a hard landing.

"More of my mates are prob'ly strung up," he said. "Where the bloody 'ell are we?"

"Between Paris and Orléans," Miranda said. "We'd better find your people, soon."

"Right-oh," the trooper said.

It was the work of more than two hours to gather the five sticks of British paratroopers together. They'd lost over twenty dead, but none missing, and several were injured, but none badly enough to need more than a bandaged ankle or wrist, or a few stitches from Miranda.

Once the men were organized and ready to move, Miranda opened out a large map and pointed out German encampments, and hard-points– positions with a concrete bunker and machine-gun nests. The paratrooper NCOs made notes and asked about landmarks, and plotted their way west.

"If we had enough gasoline, we'd offer you vehicles," Miranda said. "But there's a shortage and what we have, my stores in particular, must be conserved. We've a lot of work to do, and we're not expecting any help soon."

"Right you are, m'am," said a sergeant from Yorkshire. "But our lads copying that map o' yours is certainly a help. We'll make our way west, hassling Gerry as we go."

"It's a good recce march, innit, Sarge?" said a young fellow.

"Aye, we'll be able to tell our lads what they face," the sergeant said, nodding.

They accepted extra supplies of food and drugs, and after effusive thanks to Miranda and her men, they marched off swiftly. Henri lit a smoke and gave it to Miranda before she could steal it. He lit another and puffed on it for a while.

"I hope they make it," he rumbled.

"As do I," Miranda said, her eyes on several of her men who were filling in fresh graves. "As soon as they're done, we'd better move."

"Did you mark this place on the map?" Henri asked.

"Yes. The British will be able to disinter those dead men later," Miranda said. "At least none were missing. I'd hate to know that we'd had to leave some poor bastard hanging to rot in a tree."

"There are worse ends," Henri said. "Dear God, if those men are captured..."

"They're in uniform, and so the Geneva Code applies to them: the Germans will take them as prisoners-of-war, and I doubt they'll get to ship them off to those godawful camps. As for us... Well. Let's get our un-uniformed selves out of here before we're gunned down like dogs."

Henri grunted agreement and they hastily departed the area.

Much later Andy and others reported that the Germans seemed nervous and confused. Pierre reported that he'd watched an officer hurrying his men into trucks, and they'd driven just beyond the gates of a base, only to be summoned back. Instead of going out to meet any Allied paratroopers, those men had instead doubled their guard rotations and had set up a few extra machine-guns behind low walls of sandbags.

During the next day, word trickled in about sticks of paratroopers scattered all over, and many casualties on the beaches of Normandy. There was hard fighting already, at the coast, with the town of Caen being bombed by the Allies to try to root out the many Germans stationed there.

"It's the _bocage_ ," Nigel said. "All those stone walls and hedgerows make good places for the Krauts to set up ambushes. Also makes it hard for our fellas to break out in force."

"But further north," Emily said, tapping the map. "Our boys are doing well. They've captured these two towns here. They'll be landing more men, supplies, and tanks there. Inland, our men have both taken command of bridges and destroyed others. Word from London: we're to focus on bridges, wherever possible."

"More work for me," Andy said. "About those stone walls: tell London to tell our boys to blow 'em up. A little string of charges, or maybe those long Bangalore tube explosives set along the base of a wall will flatten it. Then they can just roll their tanks through. If they bundle three grenades, about five or six bundles, and get our fellas to throw 'em accurately, that'll drop the walls, too. What's flattened makes a bad hiding spot for Krauts."

" _Oui_ ," Pierre said. "Four grenades make a sandbag wall around a machine-gun very flat. Tell London."

"Will do," Emily said and went at once to the radio.

That night, Andy blew up a road-bridge over a minor river and she and her men also took out a radar installation. It had only been installed two days ago. She came back to the chateau wearing a broad grin, and Miranda was quite happy to reap the benefits of Andy's very good mood.

But as they lay sated after love, the muted roar of artillery and the dull thud of falling bombs in the west reminded them that they should sleep. The war was here now, the front was theirs, and rest was their first weapon against the enemy. Well-rested, they could plan and fight against soldiers who were probably kept awake at night, with worry.

That particular thought got Miranda's cogs turning, and the next night she went out with several men and women. They approached a base and three teams set up mortars. Each team fired just one round each, and after waiting to see the mortars explode within the base perimeter, they hastily packed their equipment and left. But the German soldiers in that base had no idea about that. Miranda imagined that they'd spent the rest of the night awake, on guard, possibly terrified.

"You were right," Pierre reported. "Today all those men looked exhausted. Me and my scouts will take over that harassment. We can hit many camps, maybe six or seven, every night. We'll tell others with mortars to do the same. We can even use the grenades that are fired by a rifle. Or throw hand-grenades. Anything that makes the big bangs."

"Vary the number of _bangs_ you fire between two and six," Miranda said. "Have no pattern—roll a dice to decide."

"Good idea," Pierre said.

He was about to leave, but Miranda stopped him.

"How's Nate doing?"

"He has keen eyes, good and quick reactions. He works hard, and he never complains, even when he gets soaked in the rain. Oh, and he cooks so wonderfully. We all like him very much."

Miranda chuckled and waved Pierre on his way. At dinner she passed his report on to Lily, Doug, and Andy, who chortled at that rather expected comment about Nate's cooking.

"And I like it that he's linked up with a bunch of scouts," Doug said. "They're real careful, all the time."

"Yup," Andy said. "More than half of their mission is not to get caught, so they're teaching Nate to be as careful as they are... I realized something: last night I blew up the last bridge within easy traveling distance of this place. I've either gotta commit to travelling and being away a couple days, or stick to fucking up railway lines."

"The prospect of you being away for a few days doesn't please me, but if you feel the urge to blow up a bridge..." Miranda said with a small shrug.

"I think we have to look at the map, decide which bridges are important enough for me and my crew to make a point of going there. Travel's risky, and I dunno if the risk's worth it. By now there are several crews who know my method and can use it."

"Mmm!" Emily said around a mouthful. When she'd swallowed it, she said, "I was thinking the same thing. The beauty of your bridge-blasting method, is that it's simple. And goose, to say that travel's _risky_ is a sorry ruddy understatement, considering you'll be travelling with barrels full of TNT."

"If you're caught with that..." Nigel said.

"Firing squad, in five minutes flat," Henri rumbled.

Andy's only response was a nod, her expression sober. Miranda said nothing about that until later, and she made sure that her tone was just a little harsh.

"By this stage, others shouldn't be bringing your attention to various levels of risk."

"Yeah, I know," Andy said. "I'll be watching out for that, making sure I think about risks and gains before others remind me of 'em... Sorry."

"You'll be more careful," Miranda said confidently. "As long as I know that, I won't have any extra worries."

"And you really don't need any extra," Andy muttered. "None of us do."

There were a lot of extra worries already, for many people. On June eleventh word reached the chateau that the residents of a small town called Oradour-sur-Glane had been completely wiped out by a company of German soldiers. There were few details beyond that, but over the next two days the picture was made clearer:

An SS officer had allegedly been captured by _Résistance_ members in the area, and members of the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Division _Der Führer_ had responded by surrounding the town, supposedly with the intention of examining everyone's identity documents. Instead, once everyone was gathered, the men were herded into several barns, and all the women and children into the church. The men were shot in the legs before being doused with fuel and set on fire. The women and children were burned alive in the church, and any who tried to escape through the windows were machine-gunned.

Numbers weren't firm yet, but it was reported that more than six-hundred people were killed, in one afternoon.

"Over six-hundred killed, for one officer..." Miranda breathed, barely above a whisper, so angry that she could barely stand still. She took a few minutes to think, then said to Pierre, "Call everyone to a meeting tonight."

Pierre nodded and jogged away. Andy made to say something, but Miranda shook her head and walked outside, into the uncaring sunlight– she felt that the sun had the audacity to shine, during these horrible days. She stood alone and felt alone, and she knew that she'd feel that way even in a crowd. In many ways, leaders always stood alone.

That night, in the woods, she climbed atop a boulder and called a crowd of nearly a thousand people to order. Miranda recounted the known details of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre.

"More than six-hundred innocents killed to avenge the life of one wretched officer," she concluded. "Do we stand for that?"

" _Non!_ " came a growled response.

"Definitely not," Miranda said. "No, we will make them pay until we've bled them dry. They wanted this goddamned war, and now we'll bring it to them. Hit and run. Do as much damage as you dare, but hit and _run_. We're guerrilla fighters—act like it. We're in no position to make stands and fight by the so-called rules. Make your own rules as you go. Do whatever you can live with afterwards, and even then, ask yourself if any future discomfort is worth it. You may have a future. Think of those who no longer do; think of those whose lives will be cut short in the next days and months. From now on, every man in a German uniform is our mortal enemy. We show them no mercy until they show us a flag of surrender. Spread the word: those are my orders... That's all."

Miranda jumped down from her boulder and made her way through the crowd. She greeted this person and that, and wished them luck, but she didn't tarry. Beyond the woods she walked alone through her vineyards, down the slope towards her house. In the west there was the thud and roar of guns and bombs, and the evidence of explosions on that horizon was a near-constant glow: poor Caen getting hammered.

She wanted this war _over_. She wanted to be done with it, and the best way to help that along, she felt, was to hurry it up. If her people could inflict direct damage on the enemy and weaken them even a little, then that would hurry things along.

Other things would help the hurry. Miranda had several plans, and it was time to put a few of them into action.

"You want me to steal _what?_ " Andy squawked. "A _tank?_ Are you completely fuckin' nuts? I don't even know how to drive—"

"Of course you do," Miranda said. "Or have you forgotten those bulldozer driving lessons, hmm?"

"Oh... Oh my God," Andy mumbled. And to Emily, who'd begun to laugh a little hysterically: "Shuddup: it's not funny. She's gone off her damn head."

"I have not," Miranda said and rolled her eyes. "We need a tank and several artillery pieces. If we have those, _then_ the war's really on."

"Miranda, if we have a tank, it's likely that Gerry will send a few planes to bomb it," Emily said.

"What planes?" Miranda drawled. "The aerodrome at Melun Villaroche sports exactly thirty-four planes, all needed to do damage to our men on the coast. None of those will be spared to hunt down a lone, _hidden_ Panzer Mark Three."

"Hidden?" Andy asked.

"We're stealing the tank and the guns, darling, though I doubt we'll ever use them. But the damned Germans don't know that, do they, and _that_ is all psychological warfare, at its finest."

Andy and Emily blinked at Miranda for a few moments, and the most unexpected thing happened: Emily bestowed a rather fiery kiss on Miranda.

"Oh my," said Miranda.

"I was waiting for her to do it, and she didn't," Emily said while yanking the basement door open. "I'm going to ask around about a poorly-guarded tank. Goose, she could do with a second kiss."

Andy obliged and Miranda settled into that kiss for a good long while, a small escape from horrible realities. When they parted, Miranda smiled at Andy.

"I've not gone _loco_ , I promise."

"Even if you have, there's method in your madness," Andy said. "And I still love ya."

"I love you, too," Miranda chuckled.

And that was the beginning of a few days worth of waiting. It turned out that most tanks were being sent north, to combat the Allied forces at the coast. Their lucky break came almost a week after Emily had planted that smooch on Miranda. They got word that a small company of German soldiers was encamped just thirty or so kilometers away. They had two tanks and an armored half-track. There were only sixty men in the company, and it seemed that they'd strayed from a far bigger column that was some five days' march away.

After looking at the camp's position on a map, and listening to Pierre's description of the terrain, Miranda decided that they'd need just a hundred people to overwhelm the sixty Germans. More than a hundred would be a case of overkill.

Henri, Pierre, and Andy handpicked the people who would come along: sixty-three men and thirty-seven women, and Arthur arrived to lead twenty of them. Miranda and her twenty teamed up with Emily and her people, and the other three groups went out individually with Henri, Arthur, and Andy.

Everyone snuck into position, and the camp was attacked at one a.m on-the-dot. Miranda and Emily led their people in a mass-charge, right into the middle of the camp, shooting any man who made a move for a weapon or who made any other attempt to resist. The other sixty people followed, completely encircling the camp.

"Hands on your heads!" Miranda barked in German. "Every uninjured man line up here, five men to a rank."

The startled German soldiers did as they were told, and Henri and several others searched the soldiers while Emily and a couple of her people saw to the German wounded. Miranda pointed out that business to an officer.

"They'll apply tourniquets and dressings. You'll have to do the rest."

"I can– I'm a doctor," he said. "You're not taking us prisoner?"

"No, I'm taking your tanks, and your half-track," Miranda said and lit a cigarette. "You wouldn't happen to have any field guns, would you?"

"Three fifty millimeter Pak Thirty-eight antitank guns, those only," he said, looking confused.

"Those will do nicely, thank you," Miranda said and smirked.

Some distance away Andy got one of the tanks started, and she popped her head out of the driver's hatch.

"Sounds good, huh?" she yelled.

"Lovely," Miranda said, nodding. "Start the other one, too."

Andy nodded and her head disappeared. Twenty minutes later, with a lot of ammunition loaded into the half-track, and a Pak 38 towed behind each vehicle, Miranda's tank led the way back to the chateau. It had been years since she'd driven a bulldozer, but it wasn't exactly rocket science. As a bonus, _her_ tank just happened to be a Panther, and instead of the usual drive levers, it had a steering wheel which made it even easier to drive.

At the chateau the tanks and half-track were driven up the slope, into the woods, and people waiting there helped to camouflage them and the guns. Miranda oversaw that little operation and occasionally directed from the sidelines.

"If any fools dare come against us here, we can always position both the tanks and the guns at the edge of the woods, and blast those bastards to hell."

"Yeah," Nigel agreed. "I forgot to ask: was anyone hurt tonight?"

"Only Germans," Miranda said and walked off.

She overheard Nigel telling Andy that "She's full of it now," and Miranda smirked: yes indeed, she most certainly was. At the chateau, she popped the cork on one of several bottles of champagne that had been chilling down the well. She clinked her glass to several others and took a sip.

"We'll have the better of them now," Miranda said.

"The only pity is that I won't get to drive my tank again," Andy said.

"You might," Miranda said. "At any rate, it's now certain that you'll have to teach at least two people how to drive those tanks: they'll be a valuable addition to any Free French forces that arrive here."

"But not Brits or Yanks?" Emily asked.

"Without regret, I say No," Miranda said firmly. "While I'm sure that the Free French have been well-armed by our allies, I'm damned sure that they're seen as second-rate soldiers. We French Forces of the Interior have a duty to support France first, and by extension any Free French soldiers."

"I won't argue," Emily said. "And we might even pass those tanks on to some FFI lads, as soon as they can move in the open without being immediately pounced upon and wiped out."

"It won't be long before we have that much control of France," Miranda said, certain.

She only questioned that certainty later, just before noon, while Andy slept off both a lot of champagne and a lot of sex. Miranda lay awake and put herself through a mental wringer, to make sure that her certainty wasn't simply buoyed by—it had to be said—a relatively minor success. Overwhelming just sixty soldiers, of whom most had been asleep, was a piffle; it had been an action over in less than a minute. It was less a victory and more a simple win, and Miranda looked at it levelly, properly, and told herself that the time for celebration was over. After all, they had to be on their toes now: she'd made herself a fine target, by stealing those vehicles and guns.

Miranda had fully expected at least a little retaliation for her grand theft tank-and-half-track, but in the week that followed no German soldiers approached the chateau, and no local folk were harassed.

"I think that officer told his men to keep mum about _who_ stole their tanks," Emily said one evening. "And given that we stole the bloody things more than thirty kilometers from here, no-one's linked the theft to you."

"That's all I can think of," Nigel said in agreement.

"Mmm," Miranda said, nodding. "I might almost be peeved about that, but the truth can come out later, when it won't get people killed."

"Don't tell me you're regretting it," Andy said.

"No, not at all," Miranda said. "Because even though my name's probably being kept out of it, the Germans know that two of their tanks and three of their antitank guns are lurking, _somewhere_. They have no idea when or how those weapons will be put to use, but they do know that when they are put to use, it will be against them. That's likely cause for sleepless nights on behalf of many an officer, and a good many regulars. That was my intention."

Elsewhere the war was being brought directly to the Germans. Caen still stood as a German stronghold, and Miranda knew that the Allied forces would have to resort to the heaviest possible bombardments to get the Germans out of there. That, and the Allied forces would have to have a lot of very brave men on the ground to make sure of the job. The Allied men were having better luck elsewhere, and already owned several towns and a lot of territory leading north to Cherbourg. It was hoped to take Cherbourg as a harbor but Nigel shook his head whenever that possibility was mentioned.

"The Krauts have every kind of mine in existence in that damn puddle," Nigel said. "I watched 'em laying some of those mines. I also saw them sinking some, so you got a lot of nasty stuff down where you can't see it. It'll take months to clear that harbor, even if our boys go the route of blowing the damn things up. Those man-made harbors that our side has set up just off their landing beaches will have to do, for now. From what I hear, they work real well, so even considering Cherbourg as a harbor is a waste of time. Just take it from the landward side; just get the Krauts out and ignore the harbor, I say."

Emily thought enough of that opinion to send it back to London. The next day she received a reply saying, "Yes, we know, but tell that to the Americans."

Andy groaned aloud when told about that by Miranda, and Andy muttered that she could just imagine how many poor British and Canadian generals ended up wanting to smack their foreheads on the nearest desk or table.

"Can't be that bad," Lily said.

"Oh no?" Andy said. "You wanna think about that for a while?"

Lily didn't need to think for very long: she soon winced and pulled a face.

"You two ladies are being a little unpatriotic there," Doug said.

"Says a typical _American_ man," Andy said with a laugh. "You ever heard that there's no I in 'team'?"

"Well yeah, but—"

"No buts, Douglas," Miranda said. "The Americans got into the war late and promptly made noises about wanting to be the boss, just because they have the most money. Every single American commander is still learning the ropes, but you won't find even one of them who'll admit that. Eisenhower fully believes that he's a better general than Montgomery. That's literally impossible, given that Monty's the one who's planned almost every major Allied victory in Africa and Europe to date. What's more telling is that whenever he's lost, he's been humble about it. Several of Eisenhower's grand plans have nosedived, and he's blamed those failures on external factors."

"I hadn't looked at it that way," Doug admitted.

"Like I said, you're a typical American man," Andy drawled through cigarette smoke. "You have to get told about stuff like that, and almost forced to listen, too, before you look at it right."

"That's a bit of a low blow, isn't it?" Doug said tetchily.

"Grow up," Andy snapped. "You don't like having your nose rubbed in the truth—grow the fuck up. I got better things to do than argue with a poor-me attitude based in hurt feelings."

Andy got up and stalked out of the living room, and Miranda guessed that she'd occupy herself with balancing the farm's books. Doug sat still a while, then made to get up.

"If you're going to try to present your side of things, I'd advise against it," Miranda said.

"Andy's not the girl you once knew, Dougie," Lily said. "She's got her reasons for thinking the way she does, and if you think about it, you'll end up agreeing. I mean, we know that a lot of our boys got killed and hurt on those beaches, but the Canucks lost a lot of their men, too. Whose losses are being talked about most on radio? If only one of our fellas had bought it on June sixth, it would somehow still be a big deal. Why? Cos we're Americans, and we've gotta make the most noise about everything we do. That's not right, and worse, when men are dying, it's not fair. Worse than that? Oh sure, it gets worse: it's embarrassing."

"When one's at a distance, as I've been for the last twenty-six years, various pictures become clearer," Miranda said. "And I've come to the conclusion that for most Americans, everything is a competition, and those Americans are intent on winning each and every one. As Lily said, a _big deal_ is being made out of America's combat losses, and certainly, every loss is a tragedy, but it's no more a tragedy for an American woman to lose a son than it is for a Russian or British or Commonwealth woman. But go and say that on Capitol Hill, if you dare."

"You'll get pounded," Lily said flatly.

"Yeah, I would," Doug agreed at once. "No doubts there. And thinking about it... Not a nice feeling."

"Shame never is," Miranda said quietly. "But no-one's asking you to beat yourself up, and you really shouldn't—no American should because that won't do any good. Just be a little more aware of the world around you, and remember that there really is no I in 'team.'"

"That I can do," Doug said. "And I think my head's in the right place for me to go find Andy now. Never leave a fight lie before bedtime, y'know?"

"Neither before bedtime, nor in wartime," Miranda said and nodded toward the door.

Doug left the room and Miranda fetched the brandy decanter. She added a little more to Lily's snifter, and to her own, and sat down again.

"You find Andrea much changed?" Miranda asked.

"Yeah, but I saw it coming, before those Gestapo goons disappeared her," Lily said. "She's the same old Andy, mostly, but she's got these little sharp edges now—like her mom: no-one messes with Missus Sachs. I think you'll like her."

"Oh, I'm sure. The trouble is that I'm not at all sure that she'll like me," Miranda said wryly.

"The Sachses are the kinda parents who honestly want what's best for their daughter," Lily said. "I remember Mister Sachs lecturing a friend's dad on that concept. He said that what's best for one's child naturally has to include that child's opinion and a consideration for their likes and dislikes. And a year or so later, the Sachses were told by Andy that she'd decided that she didn't wanna go to law school. She'd been writing for the college paper, and she really liked it, and wanted to go to journalism school instead. They had a long talk about it, and Andy walked away from that with the full backing and blessing of her parents. She chose to come here before going to journalism school, and things have changed and I dunno if she still wants that career—"

"She does, but she'll likely be writing in French, rather than English," Miranda said. "But she expresses herself well enough in both, so she could end up writing in both."

"Maybe," Lily said. "Anyway, my point here is that Andy's folks aren't hypocrites. They may not be entirely happy—they weren't overjoyed about the no law school news, but I really don't think they're gonna argue when she tells them that you and this life here are what she wants. And besides, they kinda got instant grandkids, and they never had a hope for any. Andy's never wanted babies of her own."

"This I didn't know," Miranda chuckled.

"Yeah well, now you do," Lily giggled. "But just to settle any maybe-worries: she's real good with older kids."

"I've no worries there, none at all," Miranda said and she didn't bother to hide her smile. "If we make it through this war, I'm almost certain that my girls will like her... _Instant grandkids?_ "

"What else d'you want me to call 'em? That's what they are, to the Sachses," Lily said, grinning.

"I suppose," Miranda said, amused.

Sometime later, after Miranda had related Lily's insistence upon 'instant grandkids,' Andy snorted a laugh and grinned broadly around the skinny Spanish cheroot between her teeth.

"You look like a rogue," Miranda said.

"Blame Arthur: he got four boxes of these things smuggled to him, and he gave me one... Instant grandkids." Andy snorted a laugh. "And yeah, my parents are gonna feel that way about your girls. I think they might just be reason enough for my folks to pack up and hop across the Pond."

"There'll be a lot of work here for your father. And not least for your mother: every experienced nurse will be in high demand after the war."

"And Mom's experience runs the gamut, all right. She practically bosses half a small hospital now, but after the Great War she did a lot of rehabilitation work with maimed vets. I got no doubt she'll rope in a couple docs and set up a clinic within six months of being here."

"We could use that out here," Miranda said. But she checked her imagination, and said, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, hmm?"

Andy nodded agreement, and easily changed the subject. They'd both gotten into the habit of smooth topic switches, because they'd also gotten into the habit of getting ahead of themselves. The war was far from over, and before it ended, they had no idea what risks they might face. Miranda was weary of reminding herself of that, and it was a dangerous place to be, constantly having to tell herself to live only day-to-day. She knew well what it meant: she'd reached that point where she'd had enough, and people who'd had enough tended not to take as much care as they should.

She glanced at the framed photo of her daughters, next to her side of the bed, and she mentally promised them that she'd hang on tight, and take all the care she could.

~ ~ ~

In the month after Miranda had let her people loose and had told them to hit the Germans and _run_ , they'd accounted for an estimated two-hundred-fifty German soldiers dead or wounded. Andy was out almost every night, leading hit-and-run blitz attacks against whichever German soldiers that could be found. She'd had a few close scrapes, but then so had everybody else. It was time for that now, time to pull out all the stops, and to wreak havoc. The risk was acceptable. Everything they did would be of some help to the men fighting at the coast.

In the month following, Miranda organized raids on German supply depots: the tanks now had more ammunition, as did those Pak 38 guns, and Henri and Andy and their crews had teamed up and had stolen another half-track. The vehicle's occupants had seen the rush of partisans out of the dark, and they'd bailed out of the armored truck and had fled, rather than stand and fight. That told Andy that morale among the enemy was at a really low ebb, and no wonder: at the coast the Allied men were in the process of trapping a large number of Germans and an enormous amount of materiel in what was being called the Falaise Pocket. Andy knew that many German soldiers would escape, because that area, just east of Caen, was _bocage_ country and its hedgerows and walls better afforded escapes than it helped entrapment. Ultimately, even if every German there escaped, they were still in a state of defeat. They'd not be able to break out with any heavy equipment or vehicles; they'd be in full retreat with no thought to maintain a fighting front. Beyond the coast, the situation was worse for the Germans: the Americans had bombed the Melun Villaroche aerodrome, and the Luftwaffe had lost its only base in France. That meant that the Germans on the ground had no air support at all.

"Our boys don't even have to look up– no worries about Stukas dive-bombing 'em," Andy said one morning in mid-August, while she and Emily were laying fresh straw in the calf pens. "Em, in that Falaise Pocket– that's the whole Kraut Seventh Army that our fellas are gonna trap like rats, right?"

"Along with the Fifth Panzer Army," Emily said, nodding. "If our lads get it right, that'll knock Gerry for six, especially given the Americans are now moving up from the south, too—just had word about that. They're there, in Saint-Raphaël, already."

"Hot damn..." Andy murmured, seeing the map in her mind's eye: the Germans had nowhere to go but north and east, and she really doubted that they'd try to stop along the way. "This whole thing's nearly over, isn't it?"

"All over bar the shouting, or in our case, the shooting," Emily drawled, but she also smiled. "Nearly over, yes. Still, keep your wits about you, all right, goose?"

"Yeah," Andy said firmly. And: "What did Miranda say about that?"

"One word, her usual: _Good_ ," said Emily.

"There's actually not much more to say, when ya think about it," Andy said.

"And it _is_ good," Emily conceded. She heaved a pitchfork heaped with straw into a pen, and said, "We'd better get on with—"

"Emily, Andy!" Henri yelled. "Let's go!"

"Go where?" Andy hollered back, even while running out of the barn.

"We have to meet up with some FFI men, many partisans," Henri yelled. " _Renarde_ says, start the tanks."

"Holy fuckinoli..." Andy mumbled, and broke into a jog.

"Maybe those Gerries have broken out of that pocket and are heading our way?" Emily said, jogging along with Andy.

"I dunno, but whatever the hell it is, we got two tanks ready and waiting for 'em."

Michel was at the chateau today and he caught up with Andy and Emily. Apparently Miranda had told him to drive a half-track; Alain was the other half-track driver. Emily had the honor of driving Miranda's tank down to the chateau.

The tanks and half-tracks had new paint-jobs and were emblazoned with "FFI" in large white letters, both modifications effected in the hope that Allied armor would know them as machines belonging to the French Forces of the Interior, and wouldn't mistake them for German armor. At the chateau, Andy got out of the tank and took her Sten from Nigel.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"You're all going to Paris, presumably to help liberate it," Nigel said. He handed Andy and Emily a British infantry helmet each. "I have command of everyone staying here. Good luck, and try stay in one piece, all right?"

Andy nodded and buckled the chinstrap of her helmet. Henri came out of the house with Emily's rifle and ready bag. He had Andy's bag slung from a shoulder, and once he'd given it to her, as Emily was doing, Andy rapidly unpacked the bag and repacked it, to check that everything was there: ammunition, two ration packs, a spare shirt, sweater, and underwear, and most importantly, a compact medical kit. Jeannette came out loaded down with canteens of water, and Nigel helped her to hand them out to the people gathered near the chugging tanks.

Michel helped to load Andy's, his own, and Tomas' gear into her tank. Miranda's tank crewmen were Pierre and Alain. Other men and women had arrived by now, and were assigned to the half-tracks. Emily, Henri, and Arthur would be riding in what Doug had called the Betsy-wagon (and of course, it had stuck). Andy caught Doug giving a somewhat wistful look at the vehicles, and she shook her head.

"My gut says we're heading to a fight," Andy said. "You know what to do if a fight comes here, but going _to_ a fight... That's a whole 'nother ballgame, Doug."

He didn't say anything in response, and Andy took the knife that had been strapped to her bag and threaded her belt through the loop on the custom sheath. Doug did a double-take at that knife. It was an M1918 trench-knife, a gift from Henri; it had a double-edged dagger blade, but its most striking feature was the grip, which incorporated brass-knuckles, spiked ones at that. Doug stared at the bronze grip and gulped noticeably. Lily was also staring at the knife.

"That's the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life," she mumbled.

"If I run out of ammo, or I'm stuck in close with a Kraut, this'll be the last scary thing _he'll_ ever see."

"If he sees it at all," Emily said.

"The way I taught her? Ha! He will not see anything except the gates of hell," Henri rumbled. He looked at his watch, and looked toward the house, just in time to see Miranda emerge. "The Tommy-gun, today: she means business."

"Yeah," Andy said.

She had to grin at Miranda's appearance: tin-hat on at a rakish angle, British-issue drab-brown battle-dress properly tailored to fit in a flattering way, with custom calf-length boots polished to a spit-shine. And there was a dark olive silk cravat at her throat, which was just the right touch. Andy mentally called Miranda the most stylish partisan in France.

Miranda handed her war-bag and Thompson SMG up to Alain, and she looked around at the assembled people.

"Well, I never thought I'd be required to say this, but... Mount up!" Miranda barked.

Andy gave Miranda a swift kiss before obeying that order, and others were scurrying into vehicles, too. In the tank, Andy opened the driver's hatch and cranked up her seat so that her head stuck out of the hatch. She put on the driver's goggles that she'd hung around her neck, and she waited for Miranda's tank to pass her before engaging the forward gears. Tomas squeezed in next to her and fiddled with her chin-strap and took off her helmet. He put another on her head, and this one had earphones. He strapped a microphone around her throat.

"Can you hear me?" he asked.

"Yeah– nice, now we don't have to shout. Can you raise Miranda?"

"I'll try, but the stupid _Boche_ didn't put instructions on the radio in French," Tomas muttered. He was quiet for a while, then said, "Andy, go."

"How's the ride?" Andy asked.

"I thought I'd enjoy it more," Miranda said, her voice tinny over the crackly, squelchy radio waves. "But dear God, this _crawl_..."

"It's a tank, my love, not a sports car," Andy giggled.

"Don't rub it in."

"Won't. Talk later."

"Yes. Out," Miranda said.

Andy asked Michel, who was in the commander's hatch, if he could see anything that might be worrying.

" _Non_ ," he said. "And I'm using the heavy binoculars I found in a box in this thing. There is nothing for kilometers and kilometers... Maybe the _Boche_ have left already?"

"They'll be leaving in trickles," Andy said. "We'll get 'em coming through from the coast, probably only at night. But keep those peepers open, huh?"

" _Oui_ ," Michel said.

"I think we'll only get to Paris tonight," Tomas said.

"Yup," Andy agreed.

There were stops along the way, to let people stretch their legs, and to refuel the vehicles from the bowser towed behind one of the half-tracks. The Betsy-wagon was the lightest vehicle in the column, and was acting as a scout, driving ahead and occasionally taking side-roads to gauge the general situation.

"We saw some Yanks," Emily said. "Army Rangers. They say they haven't encountered any resistance, but they did see a Gerry column headed east, last night. They said we'll meet up with more of our Allied lads, and with Free French pretty soon. Our FFI fighters are with the Free French, about twenty kilometers ahead of the Yanks, joined up with them this morning."

"Did you tell them that this Panther and that Mark Three are _not_ German armor?" Miranda asked.

"I did," Emily said with a grin. "They radioed ahead, so we won't get shot at."

"You should've seen their faces when Emily said, 'Oh, we stole them,'" Arthur chortled.

"I couldn't help it– I laughed very much," Henri said, laughing again.

"Sorry I missed that," Miranda said, amused. She looked at her watch and raised her arm above her head, made a circling movement with her hand. People began mounting their vehicles. To Henri she said, "Go right ahead now. If you see anything worrying, get back to us. If not, go ahead and make sure no-one aims a bazooka at us."

Henri nodded and soon the truck was zooming off. Miranda allowed Andy to retie the FFI armband around her upper sleeve. Andy dug in a pocket and found a spare safety-pin.

"That'll keep it in place."

"Thanks. I couldn't find one, earlier. I have one for my other band."

That other band was a blue Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of both the _Résistance_ and of Free France; the same symbol was painted on all of their helmets. Andy had never seen it, but apparently the Free French soldiers fought under a _Tricolore_ with a red Lorraine cross on the central white bar of that flag. This evening, perhaps she'd see that flag for the first time.

They got rolling again, and Andy had a feeling that when next she saw Henri, Arthur, and Emily, they'd be in a crowd.

After an hour of rumbling along at around thirty-five miles per hour, they met with the first American troops, camped alongside the road. Andy nodded at waving men, and the tanks and half-tracks kept rolling. They were eventually stopped, and Tomas gave Andy's shoulder a nudge. She took off her driver's helmet and collected her Sten before climbing out of the tank. She jogged over to where Miranda seemed to be having words with a tall American soldier.

"...and I have orders to requisition any stray German armor," he was saying.

"This isn't German armor," Andy said.

"It's FFI armor," Miranda said firmly. "And it's being delivered directly to the FFI personnel encamped outside Paris. If you want to argue, Lieutenant, point me to a radio and you can argue with London directly."

"And she means, _directly_ ," Andy said. "Allied High Command, via the SOE."

"Looey, you're gonna get chewed out, sir," said a sergeant. He looked like a sergeant, too: someone who'd seen Hell and had made Hell run scared. "You heard of that Silver Vixen lady, right? Y'think that silver hair's a coincidence, sir?"

"Oh," said the lieutenant.

"Now order your men out of the road," Miranda said, her tone clipped, annoyed. "In case you've not noticed, the sun is dipping low, and there are no headlights on these tanks."

"We can help you there, ma'am," the lieutenant said. "Beech, Foley– get in a Jeep, ride escort."

"Yessir!"

"I'll happily take that as an apology," Miranda said and held out her hand.

The lieutenant shook Miranda's hand and also gave her a hand up to the mudguard of her tank. Andy jogged back to hers and they were soon rolling again. She muttered to her crew that if Miranda had been male, that lieutenant would never have tried to stop them.

"I used to be like him," Tomas said. "But I'm happy to be cured of that men-are-best disease. You get cured fast, when you realize that women throw everything into fighting."

" _Oui_ ," Michel said. "Our most scary fighters are all female. I think women are savage fighters because they know what will happen to them if they're caught."

"That's part of it," Andy said. "The rest... Well, we're just real pissed off, generally."

"Pissed off is good," Tomas stated. "I'm always pissed off."

"We noticed," Andy drawled.

When last Andy had travelled this road, the only soldiers they'd passed had been German, and south of Paris, the encampments had likewise been German. This evening she found the German camp-towns replaced by fighters bivouacked as-and-where, and all of them here were French, Free French forces mixed with FFI fighters. At this point they were only twenty kilometers outside of the city itself.

Andy parked her tank next to Miranda's and Michel lowered the driver's seat before Andy pulled the driver's hatch closed. When she took off her helmet and microphone, that wonderful sound reached her ears: free Frenchmen and women singing _La Marseilles_. They were really belting it out, too, and Andy knew that that had a lot to do with defiance, because the Germans had banned the singing of _La Marseilles_.

"We bring them tanks, and we get a hero's welcome," Tomas said.

He climbed out through the commander's hatch, and Andy and Michel followed, and as Miranda and her crew were doing, they stood atop their tank and sang along, right to the end of the anthem. Cheering broke out then. Everyone was clearly in high spirits. Andy asked if there might be another reason for that.

"In Paris, starting two days ago, they have staged a full strike," a man told her. "Instead of doing any work, the citizens are constructing roadblocks, barricading buildings, even shooting at the _Boche!_ Wonderful, no?"

"Yeah, we'll have help," Andy said and accepted a cigarette from that man. "Any word on what the Krauts in Paris are doing?"

"Pulling out," he said. "But others are digging in. It sounds like they're all mixed up, but I personally think maybe there's a proper order there, with them, and maybe only nonessential men are leaving. I think we'll have a hard fight, street-to-street, house-to-house."

"We're ready for it," Andy said grimly. "Dunno so much that the Krauts are, though."

That night Andy sat in on a planning meeting. A large map of Paris was spread on the ground and the Free French and FFI commanders, Miranda included, discussed the best way to approach the city. It was known that the Germans had concentrated in the north of the city, specifically Montmartre. There was a chance that General von Choltitz, the German military governor of Paris, would order men to skirt the city and meet the Free French somewhere before Paris.

"Then some of us should leave tonight," Miranda said. "If we have any hope of helping the partisans in the city itself, we'll have to sneak in."

"It you're on foot, and scattered, you can run in," a Free French captain said. "If you bunch up, the _Boche_ will spot you."

"All right," Miranda said. "I volunteer to lead those reinforcements. But instead of making straight for the city, we'll move in behind the German positions, attack from the rear. One of you will need to lead people to attack from the front. Once we've dealt with any emplacements, and when we can use vehicles to transport ammunition and other supplies, we'll enter the city."

"Agreed. Two a.m, we go," the captain said.

Everyone agreed with that, and the meeting broke up. Andy followed Miranda to their section of the camp, and their part of the plan was explained. Arthur was acting as quartermaster and issued everyone three grenades and extra ammunition for their Stens, rifles, and pistols. Miranda's Tommy-gun needed .45 caliber ammunition, but that wasn't a problem: there was a whole crate of it in one of the half-tracks. She ordered that crate moved to the Betsy-wagon.

"And now you'd all better eat and get some rest. We leave at two a.m," Miranda said.

While they were eating more than a hundred FFI people moved over to their part of the camp. These were people loaned to Miranda until she didn't need them anymore.

The mood was light, with people telling jokes and making hopeful talk about the future. Tonight these people knew that Death might be waiting on them, just hours away, but their intention to liberate the capital of France was one that allowed no negativity. Andy knew why: if they could get the Germans out of Paris, French morale would soar.

Just before Andy was about to bed down the noise in the camp rose a little, and the reason was soon apparent.

"More of our people have arrived," Pierre said. "Miranda's five-hundred, all of them, and they brought our Pak Thirty-eight guns."

"Those Krauts aren't gonna know what hit 'em," Andy said.

"We'll take the tanks now, I think," Pierre said.

Seeing as Miranda had disappeared, Andy also guessed that the plan was changing. Sure enough, Miranda came back, climbed up to the bed of the Betsy-wagon, and called for silence.

"The order of engagement is as follows: our infantry are going to sweep around behind two known hard-points. While they harass the enemy from the rear, the rest of us will engage from the front, with cannon, mortars, tank-fire, and medium and heavy machine-guns. As soon as we've cleared a corridor, we'll move ahead. We have to do this fast because our scouts report the approach of German reinforcements. It's likely that we'll make a gap, get through it, and that gap will be quickly closed behind us, and the remaining forces here will be tied up with the Germans, possibly for a couple of days... Get some rest. We're all going to need it, because I can't say when we'll have time to rest again."

Sometime later Miranda snugged up behind Andy and made a silly quip about "terribly hard mattresses in this hotel." Andy grinned and laced her fingers into Miranda's. She lay awake only a little while, listening to the low rumble of voices throughout the camp. Andy didn't know what lay ahead, but she had a good feeling about it. They were definitely on the winning side, even if some of them ended up dead.

Arthur roused everyone at one-forty-five a.m, and by two Andy had both tanks started. Many in the camp had woken to wish them luck. Led by Henri, Miranda's infantry moved out ahead of the tanks and half-tracks, which followed slowly. Each half-track and the Betsy-wagon bore mortar crews, and the vehicles themselves were armed with machine-guns; each of those three vehicles towed a Pak 38. Andy had another man in her tank, a Free French gunner with experience, and there was another of those gunners with Miranda. The Free French had spared another tank to support them, a Valentine V, and they were in radio contact with that tank's commander. Miranda happily deferred to him and she and Andy took direction from him.

There was a lot of waiting involved in that business, especially after the infantry had rushed ahead. The tanks and half-tracks were moved up by a few meters at a time, until the crackle of gunfire was heard ahead. That was just before five a.m, at dawn. There was light enough to see and Andy's gunner let loose a round. Andy didn't have the hatch open now; she was looking out though the slit in the armor, and she saw the high-explosive round smash and blow up a machine-gun nest. Two other tank rounds hit a concrete bunker almost simultaneously, and the mortars and cannons began popping after that.

The tanks moved ahead bit-by-bit, while the mortar and gun crews remained in the rear. From Andy's tank Tomas opened up with the machine-gun while Michel spotted targets both for him and the gunner. The gunner kept firing, and the spent shells clanged emptily onto the tank floor. The _BOOM!_ of the big gun might've hurt Andy's ears, but they were well-insulated in the headphones.

In almost no time, it seemed, the order came to cease fire, and the tanks, half-tracks, and the Betsy-wagon moved rapidly ahead and drew to a halt just past a blasted bunker. Andy climbed out and saw perhaps thirty German soldiers lining up with their hands on their heads. They were marched to the road and sent away with many guards, the FFI people loaned to Miranda last night. Andy was told that the surprise had been complete, and barring someone who'd been singed by a passing bullet, none of Miranda's people had been hurt. The Germans had lost nearly forty dead and wounded.

A string of vehicles came up the road and the supplies in them were transferred to the half-tracks and the Betsy-wagon. They were given the use of two other trucks, both crammed with supplies. Andy and her crew tossed out the spent shells in their tank and took on more ammunition for both the gun and the machine-gun. The commander of the third tank shook hands with Miranda and Andy, wished them luck, and with others he hightailed it back to camp. Those people took the Pak 38s along because they'd be more of a bother than a help in a city setting.

Miranda's column now made all haste to Paris, the foot double-timing it with the half-tracks and Betsy-wagon in the lead, and the tanks bringing up the rear.

"We'll meet no resistance now," said Andy's gunner, Bernard. "We go, we get in, and we cause the big problems for the _Boche_."

"With their own tanks, ha!" Tomas said, and Andy guessed that he was grinning broadly. "The beginning of the end: we are making it happen, my friends. _Vive la France_ , and fuck the _Boche!_ "

"Where did you find this crazy boy, under a bramble-bush?" Bernard asked, laughing.

"This side of me was born in a synagogue, when the fucking _Boche_ marched in and arrested my father and many other innocent Jews. By now they are all dead."

"We go to avenge them now," Bernard said.

"Them and everyone else," Tomas growled.

"Keep that temper on a leash, all right?" Andy said.

"Always," Tomas said, a promise Andy knew that he'd keep.

Bernard's guess proved out, and they made it into Paris without firing a single shot. The tanks now took the lead and Miranda headed into Grenelle where she'd been told that an old hotel was being used as a headquarters. That particular hotel had an enormous walled courtyard, and the archway leading into it was wide enough to admit even Miranda's Panther tank. The tanks were reversed in last, after the half-tracks, with the big gun on the Panther aimed out of the archway. Beyond that archway were sandbag barricades and three American thirty-caliber machine-guns. Another two of those guns were mounted in the windows of the gatehouse over the arch. Andy ordered that two mortars be set ready on either side of the archway, and Pierre grinned at her.

" _Oui_ , we can move them out and use them fast, like that."

"That's what I was thinking," Andy said. "But I also think that the Krauts would be nuts to come here... Did Nate come along with the others?"

"No, he listened to me and stayed behind, but Louis said he was very unhappy about it."

"Unhappy's better than dead," Andy said.

"I said something similar," Pierre said and paused while Andy held a light for his smoke. "He's making a very good scout, but he has too little experience to come here, for this. Let's go inside, see what there is to eat."

The answer to that question was, not much. Miranda made the tough decision to keep the field rations they'd brought only for the people stationed here. She'd hoped to hand some of them out, but they had no idea when more supplies would reach them. She told Emily to get on the radio and request that supplies be airdropped just outside the city. When Emily came back from using the radio, she muttered about German radar and anti-air defenses: London couldn't authorize any airdrops until those problems were sorted out.

"We'll neutralize those guns," Miranda said. "I think we should make that our goal, actually. We can do the right sort of damage, that way."

"Agreed," Emily said. "Anti-air, radar, and any sniper positions. If we can take those out, it'll make things a lot easier for our lads."

After a few hours of rest, Andy gathered her old sabotage crew together and they slipped out into the dark. Someone knew of a German sniper position in the attic of a house not far from the hotel. There was no-one living in the four-storey place, but there were certain to be German soldiers in the house, acting as the sniper's backup.

"Usually it's three men, add the sniper is four," Andy told her men. "We'll know we have the right house when we find a vehicle parked outside. That's their getaway. If we only find a motorbike, then the team is just two men, the sniper and one other fella. If possible, we have to steal all vehicles, Miranda said."

"If we make the _Boche_ dead, then it's not stealing, really," Michel said dryly.

"You got a point," Andy drawled.

When they reached the house in question no light showed from inside, and the bottom floor windows were barricaded. There was a _Kübelwagen_ outside which meant that there were four men in the house, at least. Andy had a bet that the front door was barred from the inside. Michel slipped into the alley next to the house and found one door heavily barred with sandbags and rubble. When he came back he said that this house backed directly onto another: the men inside were trapped.

Andy fixed a small explosive charge to the front door and lit the fuse. She and her men backed away and when the door blew open, they rushed inside. One German soldier was downstairs, slightly stunned from the blast. He made a grab for his MP40 and Andy shot him and rushed ahead.

"Come down here!" Michel hollered up the stairs in good German. "If you come down with your hands up, we won't come up there. If you make us come up, you're dead. Come down!"

The only response was a lot of swearing, and something rattled. Andy and her five men ran away from the stairs, and a grenade blew a hole in the wooden floor.

"Up!" Andy barked.

They rushed up the stairs and came to a door. Andy used another small charge and everyone ducked around a wall. When it blew Andy led a rush into the room, and they found two Germans dead. Up the stairs again, and they cleared every room up to the top floor. Michel pointed out the attic hatch in the ceiling, and someone else whispered that he'd heard more than two men walking around up there. Andy looked around and couldn't find the ladder that the men had used to get up there, so they'd probably pulled it up afterwards.

"Plenty furniture, though. Get that chest-of-drawers."

"They've probably put things on top of the hatch," Michel said.

"So I'll use two charges, make a nice big hole," Andy said.

Andy hooked those charges up to a mechanical detonator, and her men moved the chest-of-drawers out of the way again. They needed to climb on it and didn't want it blown up, too. When they were in cover, Andy pushed the handle on the detonator: the small TNT charges barked and the building shuddered a little. She heard someone groaning, and someone else swearing.

"Grenades," Andy said coldly. "Two. I'm not gonna put my head up there for those assholes to blow it off."

Michel and another man lobbed grenades through the hole and there was a shriek before the grenades blew. Michel climbed up onto the chest-of-drawers and stayed hunkered down while he sprayed half a Sten magazine into the attic. No sound followed that. He straightened up and shone a flashlight into the attic.

"Dead," he announced. "Three of them. Maybe other snipers have more men working with them, too?"

"Maybe," Andy said. "We'll pass it around. Meanwhile, we've got another two houses to check out. Go get some of the locals. They gotta get these bodies out of here and buried somewhere. Tomorrow's gonna be a hot day, and this house will be stunk-up bad enough just with drying blood. Bodies left in here? I wouldn't like to live next door."

Michel grunted agreement and went outside. In the kitchen Andy found several large boxes of German dry rations, and there were neat rows of filled canteens, set on counters and against the walls, easily forty gallons worth of water. Andy looked at that and called it evidence that the late sniper team had dug themselves in for the duration. She had both the rations and the water handed out to local residents.

The sniper team in the next house gave Andy and her men similar trouble, and those Germans all ended up dead, too. The soldiers in the third house, however, were either a lot smarter or not as brave. After the front door had been blown open, the men in the house yelled in French about surrendering. There were four of them and Andy held a gun on them while they were searched. Two of her men carefully searched the house. They found places where booby-traps had been set ready, but they hadn't been activated.

"Thank you," Andy said in German.

"Surrender is surrender," said one of the soldiers.

"We decided: we want to go home," another said. "Enough with this pointless war."

"You must listen carefully," said a third soldier. "The _Führer_ wants General von Choltitz to blow up Paris. All the bridges over the Seine are rigged and so are many of the monuments. The men who put the explosives there are all crazy, all of them Nazi fanatics. Most of the sniper teams are like that, too: they will stay and shoot people even when there are thousands of Americans in Paris. They'll stay and shoot until they've run out of ammunition, then maybe they'll kill themselves."

"Do you know their positions?" Michel asked.

"Only a few, and we'll tell you, but there are some teams that move all the time. You won't see a car or motorcycle outside the building, because they either go from rooftop-to-rooftop, or they cross streets quickly at night."

"And many of those men are dressed like Frenchmen," said the first soldier. "They break all the rules of war. Their targets are anyone, even civilians."

Andy's skin prickled and Michel shot her a look that said he felt the same way.

They took their four captives back to headquarters where they marked up a map with the positions of various units: snipers, anti-air, radar, and radio. One of the men also pointed out a GrW 34 heavy mortar position, and Miranda decided that that particular position needed immediate attention. German 80mm mortars had a two-point-four kilometer range. If the teams manning those weapons were any good, they could lob mortars right over buildings to hit even unseen targets; all the team needed was the general location of whichever target.

"You have your own mortars," one of the FFI men said. "You can fix this problem, easily."

"I was thinking the same thing," Miranda said.

Andy didn't go along with the people assigned to take out the mortar position. She and her men had done enough for one night, and it was nearly dawn. She told Michel and the others to rest because they were certain to be busy again, soon.

And it seemed that she'd slept for only a few minutes before Miranda woke her. There were no curtains at the window of the room they shared, and Andy squinted in the bright light pouring in.

"Time?" she asked.

"Around ten," Miranda said.

"Did you get any sleep?"

"Right next to you, four hours or so. You didn't even budge when I got into bed. What will you and your men get up to today?"

"Got it in my head to disarm the charges on a couple bridges," Andy said and got out of bed. "And to add insult to injury, I think we'll steal those explosives, too. That'll put paid to at least some of Hitler's plans. Asshole."

"Be careful," Miranda said.

"Yeah, we'll watch for booby-traps," Andy said seriously.

A bigger worry turned out to be a sniper team who had over-watch on the first bridge that Andy and her men approached: they were shot at, one round narrowly missing Andy. They made a note of the sniper's position, and went and dealt with him first. He and his men didn't surrender and they were made very dead before Andy, Michel, and the others went back to the bridge.

Careful inspection showed that the bombs attached to the bridge had been linked but weren't fused. A demolitions team would have to come here and hook the charges up to a detonator, before the bridge could be blown up. They wouldn't be getting that chance. Andy and her men separated the charges from each other, and then removed them from the bridge. They had to send a runner to get a vehicle from HQ to help transport over seventy kilos of dynamite.

Michel looked down his nose at the small mountain of bundled dynamite.

"Amateurs..." he scoffed.

"Telling me," Andy agreed. "That much dynamite woulda blown up the bridge and the banks of the damn river, too."

"And then the river would have to be dammed," Michel punned.

"You've spent too much time with Nigel."

Michel laughed and waved to Henri, who was driving the Betsy-wagon. Emily jumped down and shook her head at the pile of dynamite.

"Did they intend to blow a hole to the other side of the world?"

"Looks that way," Andy said. "I forgot to ask: how did our team do against that mortar position?"

"There's a big crater where those mortars were," Emily said.

"Five of our teams threw mortars at the same time," Henri said. "They were all accurate: _BOOM!_ Goodbye, _Boche_."

"There were three GrW Thirty-fours there," Emily said. "All taken out in one fell swoop."

"Good," Andy said.

They carefully loaded up the dynamite, and Henri drove at a crawl back to HQ. TNT and the newer RDX were both much safer than dynamite, which was highly shock- and heat-sensitive. Andy and Michel separated the bundles into individual sticks and stored them in empty ammo crates in a shaded alley behind the hotel. The entrances to that alley had been shut with sandbags, and Andy and Michel felt it was a safe enough place to store the dynamite. Still, they warned everyone not to smoke round back of the hotel, and someone with a bit of free time found a piece of cardboard and made a sign to that effect, just in case.

Andy and her men disarmed another two bridges, and again they ended up with mountains of dynamite. Throwing it in the Seine was out of the question as it would poison the water, and they had to find somewhere other than the hotel to store it. That turned out to be one of the houses formerly occupied by a now-dead sniper team. They couldn't spare any of their fighters as guards, so Andy got a few citizens, all of them old men, to guard the empty house.

By now Jack Basson had arrived with three-hundred fighters, and they'd brought much-needed supplies of food and ammunition. They'd have arrived sooner, but they'd had to loop around the edges of the city rather than come straight through it. Jack's scouts had taken that direct route and had arrived before he had. They'd gathered intelligence on the way and the positions of many German defensive points had been marked on the map, which someone had taped to a large table.

That evening a meeting was called, and it could've been properly termed a session-of-war. Jack and Miranda planned out a series of offensives for the next day. Many of them were harassing actions which would hopefully encourage the Germans to commit, which would in turn draw them into the open. Other actions involved direct assaults on anti-aircraft positions. It had been decided to ignore the radar positions: without the guns attached, radar was useless. The German radio positions were, however, point-paramount.

"By tomorrow evening, there must be none left," Jack said. "We must make it so that the _Boche_ cannot communicate with each other on a broad scale. They have smaller radio sets but if messages from those cannot be quickly relayed by transmitter stations, and must instead be slowly bounced one-by-one, from one set to the other, then we'll get the better of them... Has the telephone exchange been dealt with?"

"Unnecessary," Miranda said. "I had people out last night stealing the phone lines."

"Excellent," Jack chuckled. He lit a cigar and said, "My friends, it's very important that we help to liberate this city as fast as possible. If Paris is liberated, then French morale will be raised to a point where the _Boche_ cannot beat it down again. If all our loyal people rise up, then the _Boche_ and the _Vichyste_ everywhere are as good as defeated. If you're not directly involved in the plans we've made for tomorrow, try to find a way to make trouble. Do anything, everything you can think of: all of it will help. For now, get some rest. We're going to need it, because no-one can say when our Free French brothers and the Americans will get here."

The leaders of the various groups of FFI left the dining room, talking as they went, but Andy lingered and looked at the map. Someone had drawn a red line on it, indicating the extent of territory taken by the _Résistance_ and ordinary French citizens, many of them armed only with rocks and half-bricks. That red line showed that a full third of Paris had been freed already.

By tomorrow, they would control more than half of the city.

~ ~ ~


	6. Chapter 6

**_SIX_ **

Miranda used a small mirror to look around a corner.

"Machine-gun nest," she told Emily. "Let's get around it, flank it."

"Right."

Emily signaled to the fighters across the street, a clear bit of sign-language that described an arc, and pointed behind her. One of the fighters there gave Emily a thumbs-up and she and her comrades disappeared down an alley. Miranda, Emily, and thirty others on this side of the street did the same and ran forward to another alley that led into the street behind the machine-gun. Miranda was the first out, yelling wordlessly, and others rushed forward, too. The machine-gun team and their few supporters were taken care of in seconds flat.

"Free up that gun," Miranda ordered. "Send a runner for a truck. The gun and all ammo is to be taken to our friends south of here. Emily, where's that damned Eighty-eight?"

"Just forward of our position."

Almost as if to confirm Emily's answer, the big German 88mm cannon bellowed. Miranda looked up and found that it had missed: a small Allied reconnaissance plane zoomed overhead. The Eighty-eight fired again, and so did a four-barreled _Flakvierling_ , the gun the Brits called the Pom-pom for the sound it made. Miranda glanced up and saw the flak shells exploding near the little plane, but it was too fast and also flying too low, and was soon far ahead of the deadly dark grey puffs.

The group of fighters moved forward, flanking a large building that stood in front of a small park. They found the alleyways on either side of the building blocked with sandbags. Emily and others set demolition charges on the piles of bags and everyone backed away. As soon as the charges blew, they rushed ahead, out into the park. Miranda ducked behind a tree as bullets were sprayed her way, but she was only one of over sixty targets, and as soon as that machine-gun-fire was directed elsewhere, Miranda leaned around her tree and gave the machine-gunner a few rounds from her Thompson. The heavy .45s hit their mark, and the gun was silenced. Another soldier attempted to push his dead comrade away from the gun, but Miranda shot him, too. She rushed out then, shooting at other German soldiers. Several of the men manning the anti-air guns threw down their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. Even while those men were being marched away, Emily pushed the plunger on a detonator and the German guns were blown up.

Miranda lit a smoke and took a piece of paper from a pocket: this had been the last gun position on their list. She smirked and nodded to herself. In three days they'd wiped out all of the German anti-air positions. Likewise, the last of the radio transmitter stations had been destroyed early yesterday morning. Most of the radar installations were destroyed as well, but now they could just ignore those, because the Germans here had no anti-air guns left.

As soon as they got back to HQ, Emily radioed London with the news, and in reply she received a promise of supplies on their way.

"Good, good..." Miranda said, while looking at the map. "Look at this. The damn-fool Germans are holding onto monuments. We hold most of the rest of the city."

"There are hard men holding those monuments," Emily said. "We've reports of artillery pieces and up to ten machine-guns around the Arc de Triomphe, alone. We can't get anywhere near the Champs Élysées, because it's likewise well-guarded."

"Tomorrow, we'll see how they like the taste of their own medicine: we'll take the tanks for a ride, I should think."

"It's time," Emily said.

Miranda was about to ask something, but someone rushed into the hotel lobby, yelling about Free French soldiers and armored vehicles.

"They're here! General Le Clerc's men are here! They say they're pushing ahead to the Hôtel de Ville!"

"Let's go!" Miranda barked. "Everyone! Move it!"

By now Andy was back from whatever she'd been up to. Miranda had stopped asking, because wherever Andy and her team went, explosives were disarmed, sniper teams were neutralized, radio transmitters were blown up, and a good deal of trouble was made for the Germans. In the courtyard, Miranda greeted Andy with a brief kiss, and they went to their tanks. They formed up with the Free French, who turned out to be mostly Spanish.

"What?" Miranda said.

" _Oui, madame_ ," said a captain. "Most of my men are Spanish Republicans. Their country didn't want them, but they want to fight."

"Well, we're happy to have them," Miranda chuckled.

"We all feel the same way," the captain said. He turned to a map draped over the hood of a Jeep. "Now. We're going to push to the Hôtel de Ville. Your people have demined the bridges, yes?"

"Yeah, they're all clear, every bridge over the Seine and Canal Saint Martin," Andy said. "Saw to it myself."

"Good. So we cross the Seine, and tomorrow morning, from the Hôtel de Ville we push west-by-north-west, to the Place de la Concorde."

"There's a lot of Gerry soldiers there," Emily said.

" _Oui_ ," Pierre said. "Soldiers and artillery, many machine-guns. We will need the tanks to deal with them."

"All right," the captain said. "Anything else we should know about?"

"Fuckin' weeds, that's what," Andy muttered.

"Excuse me?" the captain said, confused.

"Snipers," Michel said around a cigarette. "We call them weeds because we get rid of one team, and it seems two more take their place. They are everywhere."

"By now we're pretty sure that most of the new ones are fanatical Nazi assholes who just suddenly decided to be snipers," Andy said. "You'll know if you've got a real sniper on your hands: they either don't miss at all, or that bullet zips right by your head– a real narrow miss. The damn weeds miss by miles."

"And they shoot quickly, _bam-bam-bam!_ " Henri said. "The proper snipers, the trained ones, they take their time."

"One shot, then they aim carefully again, another shot," Emily said.

"You must look at every high window like it's the birthplace of your death," Henri said.

"He ain't kidding," Andy said, and pulled away the bandage around her neck to show a broad bullet burn. "I got that yesterday."

"Two of my men are down with bullet wounds; one was also killed," Pierre said. "This, even though we are all trained scouts, and perhaps the most careful men in Paris."

The captain took a nervous swig from his canteen, and had that information passed on to his men. Given the fact that they'd be sitting-duck targets for any sniper, even a barely-accurate self-appointed sniper, the men riding open-topped half-tracks all dismounted. The half-tracks themselves were parked and left with two guards a piece. The captain ordered Miranda and Andy to follow his tank, which was also a captured Panther.

They reached the Hôtel de Ville without much resistance. There were calls about a sniper and Miranda's gunner Joseph put paid to _him_ : when the dust cleared, half of the top floor of the target house was blasted to bits. Likewise, they dealt easily with a few machine-gun nests. At the Hôtel de Ville, there was no resistance at all. The German commanders and their staff stationed there had evacuated the building. After a thorough search of the place, the captain told his men to set up radios and to place a large antenna on the roof. The Hôtel de Ville, once the administrative center of Paris, was to be the Free French headquarters from now until less grand but still suitable headquarters could be found.

Miranda and some of her people commandeered one of two large debate rooms, formerly used by the mayor's people, and stacked all the furniture to one side. Henri and Emily arrived with everyone's bags, and also with boxes of foodstuffs: in the last three hours, true to their word, the British and Americans had airdropped tons of supplies, most of it food, but also medicines and ammunition. Emily set up a British No. 2 Portable Cooker on a balcony and set a huge stainless steel teakettle on it. Within a few minutes they had tea, and of all things, ginger cookies.

"Fancy that: tea and bickies," Emily chortled. "I suppose this is a pat on the head from the SOE."

"We've earned it," Andy said.

"I concur," Miranda said and nibbled on a cookie; seeing as it was British, she mentally and properly termed it a biscuit. She was tired, and admitted as much, but added, "Weary for good cause. I've always liked that feeling: tired out after work."

"I usually sleep well, when I feel like that," Andy said.

"Same," Emily said. She cleared her throat, and said, "I've a bit of news. My war here is over. I've been recalled to London, and from London to Scotland. I've been assigned to one of the SOE training schools there. Someone's coming to get me tomorrow evening."

"Damn," Andy mumbled and looked as though she might cry.

Miranda abruptly felt as if she might, too. Emily had been a part of Miranda's life for two-and-a-half years; she had no idea of how to even think about any kind of day-to-day without Emily in it.

"It's all based on a risk-gain assessment," Emily explained. "I've been bloody lucky not to get even slightly hurt in all this time. But if I stay here... The SOE doesn't want to take that sort of chance, and now, here in France, they feel that they don't have to. With all my experience, they need me to train the new girls, the ones bound for dangerous work around the Eastern Front. Most of them are Polish. And Chapman's been recalled, too. He's the one who gave me the message. We're leaving together, tomorrow."

"You will be deeply missed, Emily," Miranda said quietly.

"Don't make me blub, all right?" Emily said and gulped a mouthful of tea. She wagged a finger and said, "Just you wait. I'll come and visit so often you'll ruddy-well get sick of me."

"You'd better. And we'd never get sick of you," Andy said and sniffled.

"Goose..." Emily said and kissed Andy's cheek. She said to Miranda, "Captain MacIlvray was wounded and was invalided out, and he's been teaching at that training school. He said he made sure that I'll be able to see your girls, just as soon as I get there. The school's only four miles away from where they are. Let me have a letter for them?"

"Oh! Yes..." Miranda said.

A few people helped to look around, and a supply of old Republican stationary was found. Emily told others to write letters, too– several of them had relatives in Portugal and Spain as well as the UK, and she'd be able to get the letters to them. Those writing letters all crowded around one large table and Miranda noted that most of them were Jewish. Their relatives had fled the Nazis, and now here everyone was, probably writing that they were in the process of booting the damn Nazis right out of Paris.

 _What to write_... she thought. Miranda eventually decided that she might as well stick to the theme she'd thought of earlier:

' _My darling girls–_

_I'm writing to you from Paris, from the Hôtel de Ville, as you can see from the stationary that we commandeered– I doubt the mayor will mind. Many of us with the French Forces of the Interior are encamped here with some men of the Free French Forces. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow we'll demand the surrender of the German general here. By now we've made things very hard for the Germans. They have no radio, almost no radar, and they have no anti-air guns. Many of my people here have done much of that work; we've given a good account of ourselves, and by now I'm sure that the Germans hate us with a passion._

_We'll stay here for a few days more, to help with mopping up, as the military people call it. After that I shall go home and take my people with me. We think that very soon General de Gaulle will make a formal request for every able man to sign on with the Free French, and the Germans will be driven out of France for good._

_As soon as it's safe, my darlings, I'll send for you. I can't say when that will be, but I hope it's very soon._

_I miss you both so much, and hope that you're well and happy_...'

Miranda read over what she'd written and corrected a spelling mistake, crossing out the word and writing the corrected one above it. She sealed the letter in an envelope and wrote "Caroline and Cassidy Priestly" on the front of it. She handed it to Emily with a smile, and she also kissed both of her cheeks.

"One for each of them."

"I'll pass them on," Emily said and placed the letter in her bag. "You should be able to bring them back, soon."

"I hope so," Miranda said. "I could request that you accompany my girls on that journey?"

"Do!" Emily said with a laugh. "Even if I've been somehow assigned to the North Pole, the bloody SOE will move heaven and earth to make that happen for you."

"Probably," Miranda chuckled. "So we'll see you again rather sooner than later."

"I'm not gone yet," Emily said and she looked around. "I've just remembered: you and I took a walk here—well, right outside, right under the very noses of the Gerry brass, during my first week in France."

"And we've certainly shown them a thing or two since then, haven't we?" Miranda chuckled.

"We have, we have," Emily said with a small, satisfied grin. And: "We'd better bloody-well get medals for our bit here."

"Ordinarily, I don't care about things like that, but for once... Yes, I'll take a damned medal, thank you," Miranda drawled.

The next morning the Free French captain, Miranda, and Andy drove their tanks slowly along the Rue de Rivoli, without resistance, and eventually passed the Louvre. The three captured German tanks were the first to enter the Place de la Concorde, and the Germans there began cheering, thinking that one of their armored divisions had come to their aid.

"Like hell," Miranda said through her teeth. "Gunner, _fire!_ "

All three tanks opened up at the same time, moving ahead as they did so. From the Cours la Reine, two other Free French tanks, both Shermans, entered the large square with its two iconic fountains. Within seconds, it was all over, and Free French and FFI infantry rushed into the square to round up any surviving German soldiers.

Miranda got out of her tank and gave it a fond look before turning her back on it.

"You now have two extra tanks," she told the Free French captain.

"Many thanks, _madame_. We'll put them to good use."

"You better," Andy said with a grin. "It was a hard job, stealing 'em from snoring Krauts in the middle of the night."

"I wish I could have been there," the captain chuckled, shaking her hand. He shook Miranda's, too, and asked, "Will you stay, or go home?"

"There's still work to be done here," Miranda said. "We may as well stick around and help, at least for a few days. If you demand it of him, I think von Choltitz will surrender, Captain. Just remind your men that a surrender means nothing until every German here is captured. Those fanatical snipers are not going to surrender along with their general."

" _Oui_ , I'll remember," the captain muttered.

When the Betsy-wagon arrived, Miranda and her people climbed aboard and they returned to their first headquarters in Grenelle. Overnight the place had become a distribution point for airdropped supplies, and there were hundreds of Parisians standing in line to collect food. Given the crowds, Miranda decided to remove to her _maison_ , almost literally around the corner.

It was strange to enter that house by the front door, in broad daylight, instead of sneaking in via the garage. Still, Miranda and everyone else who'd accompanied her stayed clear of the windows. Even before they'd gone out with the tanks that morning, Andy had been able to demonstrate to a group of Free French soldiers how one best dealt with those 'weed' snipers. It was possible that even here in Grenelle some of those 'weeds' had sprung up in attics and on rooftops.

Miranda bristled at the thought of being shot through a window, in her own home, and later that day she was out and about, doing some of the mopping up that she'd told her daughters about.

She'd expected that they'd hear of General von Choltitz's surrender today, but it wasn't to be.

"Bugger," Emily said, while they were waiting for her driver. "I was hoping to be here for that... Look there, look at who just crawled out of the woodwork."

Emily waved at Chapman, who picked up his pace. He greeted Miranda with a smart salute.

"Commander Robert Chapman-Ayre, Royal Navy," he said, grinning like a pirate. "Haven't we met somewhere else?"

"We might have," Miranda said, playing along.

"Hey Tomas, take a load of that: it's the English donkey, come to visit," Andy said.

"At least he won't step on me this time," Tomas said, grinning.

"You two are never going to let me live that down, are you?" Chapman chortled.

"Not a chance," Andy said and shook his hand. "Good to see you're still alive."

"I've had several close scrapes, though," Chapman said, his expression sobering. "We lost several operatives in Le Havre. Someone sold us out. And yesterday we were attacked by some retreating Germans. Major Ravitz has been invalided to the coast, and will soon be on his way to surgery in London. I'm afraid he might lose his leg, but the surgeons may be able to save it. James and Christian were also hurt, but just lightly."

"The four of you shouldn't have been together," Emily said, annoyed. "Whose blockheaded idea was that?"

"Ravitz's," Chapman said, and rolled his eyes. "But at least we weren't specifically targeted, and we were following just behind a column of Americans. They came back and put paid to those Gerry bastards. The Yanks should be here by tomorrow, latest. I'm told de Gaulle is with them."

"Oh swell," Andy grumbled. "I can just see it: General 'Rise up and fight!' who hasn't done a lick of fighting, rolls in here like a conquering fuckin' hero."

"That's a politician for you," Chapman said. "And from what I hear, Miss Sachs, you're owed a Croix de Guerre, and will probably get it directly from that, uhh, conquering fucking hero."

"Oh, for the love of Mike..." Andy muttered. "You're telling me I'm gonna have to play nice with _Monsieur_ Safe-in-England?"

"I'm afraid so," Chapman chuckled.

"Darling, if it's any consolation, I'll feel exactly as you will," Miranda said.

"Me, too, if I'm there," Emily said.

"You will be," Chapman said. "The SOE wants it that way, and the French observe all manner of niceties regarding things like that... I think that's our ride, Wing Officer."

"When was I promoted?" Emily said.

"I've no idea, but I was told to meet Wing Officer Charleton, and there can only be one Charleton in the SOE," Chapman said. He turned to Miranda and shook her hand again, saying, "Miranda, thanks ever so much for all you've done, and we'll met again, I'm sure, hopefully in peacetime."

"Hopefully. Stay safe, you two," Miranda said.

Emily collected a good many hugs and kisses, the last from Miranda.

"I'll see about getting letters back to you," Emily said. "Good luck, all of you. Cheerio!"

Everyone said goodbye, and they all stood in the street waving, until they couldn't see the car anymore. Henri wiped his eyes and blew his nose loudly.

"Hopefully we see her again very soon," he rumbled.

"Yesterday's not soon enough," Andy muttered and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She was about to say something else, but a shot cracked somewhere and people screamed and shouted. "Let's get back to work, people."

" _Oui_ , it sounds like we have more weeds to clean up," Pierre said.

The next day, when more Free French and the Americans arrived, General von Choltitz agreed to an unconditional surrender. Even so, the fighting didn't stop. Many German soldiers were cut off and weren't in radio contact with their now-surrendered commanders, and they fought on. Snipers were still everywhere, and they fired even on crowds of Parisians who'd gone out into the streets to greet their French soldiers and the Americans.

Jack and Miranda decided that there was no alternative but to go house-to-house, to have people check each and every one, and they had no idea how long that would take, even when they were offered help from the Americans and the Free French. At any rate, Miranda didn't pin a date on going home.

~ ~ ~

It was blistering hot and Andy wiped sweat off her face for the umpteenth time. She was sweating worse for the fact that she'd been disarming booby-traps all day. Yesterday, August twenty-fifth, General de Gaulle had given a speech from a balcony at the Hôtel de Ville, and by now the damn Germans should've gotten the message that they were done here, but FFI, Free French, and American personnel kept finding snipers. Rather, those German snipers kept finding targets.

Wherever the snipers were, a safe bet was that the house or building below them was booby-trapped. A favorite was a pull-detonator attached to a grenade. The detonator itself would be attached to a door by a fine wire or fishing gut, and if some unknowing soul pushed or pulled the door open, that would detonate the grenade. Today Andy and many other people had literally crawled through several houses, using scissors or side-cutters to snip lines attached to detonators, thereby disarming the booby-traps. After the house had been disarmed, partisans and soldiers stormed in, up the stairs, to kill or take the sniper and his men as prisoners. Many of those men had committed suicide rather than be captured. Andy didn't feel a damn thing either way. By now she was sick and tired of these crazy bastards who refused to surrender.

"This is our last house for the day, fellas," she told a group of men, mixed FFI, Free French, and Americans.

"Hear that, guys? After this one we're done," said a corporal.

"'bout fuckin' time," another American chuckled. "Hey Andy, how many's that, huh?"

"I dunno. Maybe twenty-five houses. Haynes?"

"Yeah, something like—"

The corporal abruptly stopped talking and Andy turned in time to see him fall. The sound of the shot came as he hit the ground.

" _Down!_ " Andy yelled and hit the dirt. "Crawl, don't get up! Get behind that wall, go, go, go! Pierre?"

"I see that bastard," Pierre said, looking through binoculars. And to the other American: "Leave him. He's dead, but you aren't, yet. You want to die today? Get behind that wall."

The GI shot one last look at his corporal and crawled behind the wall. Andy took his Garand rifle.

"Hey—"

"Shuddup," Andy said. "Tell me where, Pierre."

"Across the canal, the house with the dormer windows, the only one that's close to this point."

"Yeah, I got it. Gimme a clip, Stepman."

Stepman chose not to argue anymore. He handed over an eight-round clip and Andy pocketed it, and gave him her Sten in trade.

"When I start shooting, you fellas get across that bridge. Then you open up with covering fire on those windows. At that angle he won't be able to shoot ya, and I'll be able to cross over."

"All right," Stepman said.

Andy took aim at one of the windows and gave it two rounds, and her men scrambled out of cover. She kept shooting while they crossed the bridge, and as soon they started shooting, Andy took off in a crouching run, zigging and zagging to make it hard for anyone to get a bead on her.

"All right, let's get in there," Andy said while she and Stepman swapped weapons again. "No time for disarming anything: just blow the fuckin' doors."

Some of her men circled the house and they blew the back door at about the same time as the front door got it. Andy slung her Sten and drew her knife in one hand, pistol in the other. She knew what it would be like inside: corners and narrow corridors and staircases, and no room to properly use even the short-barreled Sten.

Inside the ground and first floors were clear, and so was the second. Half of the third floor was empty, but two doors were closed. Michel set a small charge on each one, and the big explosions that resulted told Andy that those doors had been rigged. Michel checked the stairs on the way up to the fourth floor, and cut a wire that had been laid across the second-last. Andy went up ahead and just as she reached the top of the stairs, a German soldier burst out of a door to her right.

Good reflexes were the only thing that saved her: she ducked under the swinging butt of his rifle, and as she straightened up, she smashed the knuckle-duster guard of the trench-knife into his face. He went down but he wasn't out, and she shot him before he could move.

"Your friend is dead!" Andy yelled in German.

"And some pansy-assed friend you had: he got killed by a girl!" Stepman hollered. "Get out here, you cowards!"

"Fuck you!" was the response. "You come in here, if you dare!"

"Not me, but how about you say Hi to my little pals here?"

Stepman pulled the pin on a grenade, and Andy and the other men all did the same: no less than seven grenades were tossed into the room. Andy flattened herself against a wall just as the grenades blew. She looked into the room and grimaced.

"They're _really_ dead," she said, and she thumped Stepman's shoulder. "Watch who you call a girl, okay?"

"Next time I'll say 'woman' instead," Stepman said, rubbing his shoulder. "Fuck. Corp'ral Haynes was such a nice guy. We'd better get his body... Where'd you learn to throw a punch like that?"

"You know that short, thick man you spoke to very nicely this morning?" Michel said. "Him. Henri taught her all of that stuff."

"And I can hardly wait until I don't have to use it anymore," Andy said.

"I know exactly how you feel," Stepman said. "I been in this damn war right from when they bombed Pearl. I got outa the Pacific a few months back, and I thought, _Hey, I'm getting away from that sticky heat._ Now look: I bet I sweated a gallon today. I also thought, _Hey, no more crazy Jap bansai charges_. And now look: we got crazy Krauts in attics."

"You can't win, man," Andy chuckled.

"Oh no, I'm gonna win. I'm gonna get back home," Stepman said firmly. "But first, let's go get Haynes."

The late Corporal Haynes was wrapped in a blanket and carried as respectfully as possible until Stepman whistled up a US Army Jeep. The sergeant driving it asked what had happened.

"Sniper, but we put paid to him and his asshole buddies," Andy said.

"Y'know, ladies shouldn't talk like that," the sergeant grumbled.

"Oh, that's all right, Sarge," Stepman said. "She ain't no lady, trust me."

Andy gestured at Stepman, to say, 'There you have it.' The sergeant considered that for a while and shrugged.

"Okay. You say you got the bastards?"

"Four of 'em," Andy said, nodding. "How many was that today, Pierre?"

"Nineteen dead, twenty-three captured."

"Gosh-a-mighty, when are they gonna get it that they're beat?" the sergeant muttered.

"Sarge, they're all fuckin' nuts," Andy said. "Must be, cos they still believe they can win."

"We captured one today who said they'll beat us soon, and he really believed it," Michel said.

"He said that after he got manacled, cos the MPs realized he'd try running for it otherwise," Stepman said. "So there he is, getting clapped in irons, and he's saying the Krauts are gonna beat us. I shit you not."

"In-damn-sane..." the sergeant said, shaking his head. He looked at the blanket-wrapped body over the hood of his Jeep. "Ma'am, is Private Stepman free to help me escort Corp Haynes' body?"

"He is. Thanks, Stepman," Andy said. "Sorry about Haynes."

"Mighta been me, mighta been you. It's all the same risk. Maybe I'll see you folks tomorrow?"

"Maybe. Depends on what Miranda wants to do. She's itching to go home."

"All of you earned that," the sergeant said. "No-one better insult the French in my hearing."

"Nor mine," Stepman said and got into the Jeep. "Maybe I'll see ya. If not, stay alive, huh?"

Andy and her men waved the two Americans off, and the Free French soldiers parted ways there, too.

Back at the hotel, Andy, Pierre, and Michel helped themselves to something to eat. There was plenty of food available now, albeit all field rations trucked in from the coast, but the bread they ate had been baked today, at a _boulangerie_ across the street.

Miranda arrived about a half-hour after Andy had, and she looked really tired.

"We're going home tomorrow, I think," she said.

"I thought you might say something like that," Andy said. "No-one can say we've loafed it here, and certainly not before we got here."

"If anyone does, I'll punch their lights out," Miranda stated.

~ ~ ~

_Home_. Miranda had walked into her house and had wanted to kiss the floor. She'd last felt that overwhelming desire to just get home after her disastrous honeymoon with Stephen: they'd fought almost every day for a week, and most of that had been about the location of their honeymoon. Miranda would never, if she had any say, set foot in Venice ever again. Once they'd left, she and Stephen had miraculously stopped fighting; they'd not said a harsh word to each other for almost six months. Of course, that second 'honeymoon' had ended, too, but all of that was in the past.

At home Miranda settled back into both farm work and resistance work. There were still pockets of German soldiers here and there, throughout France, and they needed to be flushed out and captured or killed. More of the latter was happening because like their crazy comrades in Paris, those soldiers refused to surrender.

There were also a lot of German deserters milling around, making a good deal of trouble in the countryside. Those who made the mistake of entering Miranda's sphere of influence were soon either killed, or captured and marched off to the nearest town for collection by Allied men. Many of Miranda's men had signed on with the Free French, but all of the female partisans had returned to this area, and none of them stood for any nonsense, from anyone.

They soon became known for little mercy and much courage, when just fourteen of them went after over thirty deserters. There was exactly one man in the partisans' party, Nigel, and as he said, all he'd done was drive a truck, namely the Betsy-wagon. Andy had been on the machine-gun, but she'd had little work to do because many of those women were crack shots.

The deserters in question had raped two women. They weren't given a trial, and none came out of that business alive. Those who weren't shot and killed in the skirmish, were hanged.

Others went the same way. Throughout France it was already being called _le épuration sauvage_ —the savage purge. French collaborators, including the _milice_ and any stray German soldiers and deserters, were being rounded up and either shot or hanged. These were summary executions without trial, and Miranda knew that the vast majority of those dealt with in this way were guilty. After all, no-one could claim innocence who'd been an active, open member of the _milice_ for two and more years on-end. Likewise, any German soldiers and deserters were also guilty by association. If the soldiers were in uniform and surrendered, there was a good chance that they'd be handed over to Allied authorities; the majority of deserters refused to surrender, though, and they were dealt with as harshly as were collaborators.

This morning early, just before dawn, Andy had led an action against six such men. The remains of the lamb they'd stolen were cooked to a husk over their fire, and one of the men had been stupid enough to keep the chemise of the woman all six of them had raped two nights ago.

"Like I told one of them, before he got hanged," Andy said while having her lunch. "He shoulda surrendered. There's a real big difference between surrendering and running around France, armed to the teeth, raping women and stealing sheep."

"I couldn't have put it better," Miranda said.

"I just wish there was some kinda trial for men like that, though," Lily said.

Miranda noticed that Andy took a breath before looking at Lily. That little breath indicated that Andy was going to do her best to be kind, instead of brutal.

"I've seen what men like that do," Andy said. "I've seen it. What they got, Lily, trial or no, that was justice."

"But Andy, a couple days back you were furious, railing against those fellas who beat up that woman. How was it any different for those men who got hanged today?"

"My bet is, that woman never tortured anyone to death," Andy said flatly. "My bet is, there was at least a chance that she was innocent. You need a trial in situations like that, when no-one is sure. But for Kraut deserters who're rapists and who take women's underthings as goddamn souvenirs? _Milice_ men who lined civilians up against walls and laughed after they shot them, grandmothers and kids included? No fuckin' chance they were innocent: no trial necessary. Get it now?"

Lily blinked and nodded slowly.

"I'd say Sorry," Andy said and took a sip of her wine. "But I'm not responsible for reality: it is what it is. Thank your stars you didn't come here sooner, when we were hunting the _milice_ in this area. I honestly can't remember how many I shot—maybe ten? Dunno; doesn't matter. I don't lose a single wink of sleep over that. But I have nightmares about the screams of innocent people betrayed by the _milice_ , tortured to death by the Gestapo. Like I said, I've seen what they did. You never have, and I hope you never do."

"Ditto," Miranda said quietly. "But neither of us is trying to change your mind, Lily. You're right to think that everyone should have a trial, that everyone's innocent until proven guilty. In the future, when we think of people other than those whom we _know_ were and are still our enemies here, Andrea and I will think as you do. But before that... No. Knowing what we do, having witnessed what we have, no-one should tell us that men like the _milice_ and those deserters are _deserving_ of trials. All they deserve is a quick end."

"And they're real lucky to get that much," Andy said and left the table.

Miranda waited a few seconds, until Andy was out of earshot.

"Try to avoid this sort of topic at mealtimes. The memories, particularly the concentration camp memories make her feel ill."

"Shoot," Lily muttered. "I'll apologize later... I guess I've had it easy."

"And I'm honestly glad that you have," Miranda said. "Believe me, Andrea is likewise glad... Now. I have to wonder how Douglas is doing..."

"I bet he got that job," Lily said. "Sure will be swanky, saying my pal Doug is the manager of the _Banque Nationale de Paris_. That's a top-drawer job, and he's the right kinda fella to hold that post. He's got no agendas, y'know?"

"I agree– the right sort of person for the job."

Miranda didn't say that she was rather selfishly hoping that Doug would get the job because it would keep him in France. She was fond of him already and really didn't want him to go back to the States for anything longer than a visit. Of course, he was rather young to hold the position of manager, just turned thirty, but his previous employers spoke very highly of him and they'd written him glowing letters of recommendation. They felt it would be an honor for themselves, as well, if their former employee were to move on to such an illustrious position. It would also be a position requiring the poor applicant to work his backside off, because the Germans had deliberately screwed up or downright falsified a lot of the paperwork involved in their transactions with the BNP. Finding out just how much Germany owed the BNP would be a big part of Doug's job for quite some time.

Doug arrived home the next morning with Nigel and James Holt, and Doug's broad grin told the whole story, but Andy and Miranda demanded to hear it anyway. He'd gotten the job, and had also gotten a fine apartment overlooking the Seine; it was included in his salary, which Doug confessed was a figure that had nearly made him pass out.

"Typical French, though, the bank president discreetly wrote the number on a piece of paper," Doug said. "It wasn't mentioned aloud, at all. And I hope I got the polite, almost disinterested look right, but maybe I didn't. I mean... Wow. Anyway, I have to pack, cos I start tomorrow, and oh my God, there's so much to fix... Say, where's Lily?"

"Delivering eggs," Andy said.

"Sorry I missed her," James said.

"Again," Nigel drawled. "You and Lily keep passing like ships in the night."

Doug muttered polite agreement and engaged in a rather French pause before he made his excuses and hurried out of the kitchen to pack. Miranda was very happy for Doug, but she also scowled.

"I don't like it when people leave."

"Today's also goodbye from me," James said with half a smile that faded fast. He looked around at a kitchen that he'd visited often, and ducked his head to look through the window at Jeannette who was pottering in the kitchen garden. "I got a feeling I'll be back, to stay."

"You'll be welcome in the area," Miranda said. "But what have they got lined up for you now?"

"An assignment I'm real suspicious about," James said. "Christian's gone already; most of the OSS people are. I'm being sent to London, for now, an office job. But word is, like Christian I'll get sent back home, given a desk until the war's over. Him and me got papers to sign– we can't talk about most of what we did here. I got approached by a French officer who told me that our brass have told the French to keep most of our names off the lists for the _Croix de Guerre_. The American names left on that list are all there for PR reasons. They look good on the list, in other words, and oddly enough, very few of them are Army: most of 'em were American civvies living here and who volunteered... Looks like our politicians have decided that they don't want the folks back home to know much about the OSS and what we did here, and what we're doing elsewhere, like Italy."

"Sonuvabitch..." Andy hissed.

"Do you want me to fight this, James?" Miranda asked plainly.

"They'll link it back to me or Christian," James said, shaking his head. "To be honest, I don't want that kinda trouble from Uncle Sam. As it is, given the number of communist partisans we worked with here, me and Chris have already gotten the third degree from the FBI."

"I bet that's what all this hush-hush bullshit is about," Nigel said angrily. "You risked your life for your country, and they're… sweeping you under the rug like this? Bullshit."

"Like I said, I'll be coming back here," James said. "Anyhow, no-one here's made any remarks on the color of my skin. I'm not gonna put up with that crap back in the States. So yeah, expect me back. Look after my car, Miranda."

"I will," Miranda said and shook James' hand. "Get back as soon as you can, and we'll find you a house with a nice garage for that beauty, hmm?"

"Keep your eye out for the right one," James said with a grin.

He kissed Andy's cheek, shook Nigel's hand, and he was gone. Andy thumped her fist on a counter.

"I can't believe that," she muttered.

"At least we know the truth," Miranda said. "I wouldn't have liked to think that everything was... hunky-dory, and meanwhile men like Christian and James had been shunted into the background by the American government. We know the truth, and that means we can inform others of possible trouble. But thanks to his new job, Douglas is both untouchable and unapproachable. Nate and Lily, if they choose to go back to the States, might have to be on their toes, at the very least aware of the possibility of FBI harassment."

"Y'know, yesterday I'd have looked at you like you're nuts," Nigel said. "I mean, the FBI are the good guys, right?"

"Guys..." Miranda said and rolled her eyes. "You sound like a GI."

"Heads up on that," Andy said. "They don't like it when civvies use their lingo. Sure, they use 'guys' in gangster movies, but even in those movies it's a term borrowed from the Army and Marines in the Great War. Your average infantryman really doesn't like it when civvies say things like, 'Hey, guys.'"

"Yeah? I'll remember that," Nigel said. "Shows, I guess: I spent the last forty-eight hours with James... Anyhow, like I was saying, we've been nicely hoodwinked, thinking that the FBI's on our side."

"I think they are, but I think that Hoover's an asshole," Andy said. "A paranoid asshole."

"I concur," Miranda drawled. "President Roosevelt once said, ' _We have nothing to fear but fear itself_ ,' and he was and is absolutely right, but he's consistently failed to recognize the vast breadth of expression that fear takes. FDR has become captain of a ship of fear, and J. Edgar Hoover is the helmsman."

"I never thought I'd ever say this, but war's refreshing in that we know who our enemies are," Nigel said.

"See one, shoot him," Andy said, nodding. "Much simpler."

"Less-simple days lie ahead," Miranda said. "Come peacetime, come goddamned politics."

"Let's change this subject," Nigel said. "I'm hungry and I don't want indigestion instead."

"All right. Is someone coming to fetch Douglas?" Miranda asked.

"Around eleven," Nigel said, nodding. "Things are better in Paris but the food is still so military. What we had for breakfast was dressed up, but I'm pretty sure most of it came out of a can, and there wasn't much. That might've been because we ate at a café. We didn't wanna impose on François too much."

"Knucklehead," Andy scolded, but fondly, gently. "I'll be nice to you and Doug, and I won't tell François about that."

"You'll get a lecture if she does," Miranda said.

She fixed Nigel a sandwich, and after she'd put the plate in front of him, Miranda squeezed his shoulder before strolling outside. Nigel would be leaving as well, sometime. Miranda was honestly dreading that day. They'd lived together in New York for a full year before they'd come here to France. They'd stuck together here in this house for another three years after that, until Nigel had been offered an established sewing machine repair business for a song. For months after he'd moved to Le Havre, Miranda had felt almost lost. He'd been the teammate she'd needed to help rebuild this place, and though he'd come to visit and help every second weekend, that hadn't resulted in the same dynamic: distance from this place had resulted in a distinct disconnect in Nigel. But in the last months, that old team dynamic had resurfaced. He'd acted and spoken and had lived as if he belonged here, as if he had a right to have a say in how things were run.

Miranda wanted to say to Nigel, 'Don't go,' but she couldn't, mostly for the fact that he'd probably stay, though only to please her. That wouldn't be fair on him, and in the long run it wouldn't be fair on either of them.

Miranda made up her mind to miss Nigel again, accepted that, and also made up her mind to move on.

She might've talked to Andy about this, but it was one area where she felt that Nigel had to come first. If he didn't bring up the subject, then it wouldn't be discussed outside the confines of Miranda's head.

And Miranda's every instinct told her that Nigel wouldn't be staying for much longer. Sure enough, just a few days after Doug left, Nigel said that he needed to open his business up again.

"I'll get a car," he said. "I'll have to get my own wheels at last, seeing as you folks blew up all the railway lines."

"Is that a roundabout way of saying you'll visit often?" Miranda asked.

"Every second weekend okay?" Nigel said.

Miranda nodded and hugged him tightly, and they stood alone in the sun for a while. When Nigel drove away with Alain, Andy wrapped Miranda in a hug.

"You won't be alone in missing him like crazy. Hope it helps to know that."

"A little, thank you," Miranda said. "But he says he'll visit every second weekend."

"Yeah? Great," Andy said.

"He also said he has to get a car, because we blew up all the railway lines."

"He's got it easy," Andy giggled. "We don't get to rag on him, cos it was a lot easier to fix all the telephone lines he stole, but I rate stealing equal to blowing stuff up."

"You can debate that point with him next weekend," Miranda said, amused.

Settling in after Nigel had left wasn't exactly easy, but it was easier than the last time, all those years ago. This time there was that air of second-time-around, where Miranda knew how it would feel, but there was also the addition of Andy who was company and meet partner for Miranda in a way that Nigel never had been, and never could be. It took Nigel leaving for Miranda to realize that the team dynamic that she'd felt while he'd been here, had in fact belonged between herself and Andy, and not herself and Nigel.

Miranda berated herself a little for missing that, until she realized that it was understandable. After all, she'd last experienced that dynamic with Nigel, and only with him, and so she'd ascribed it to Nigel again. It had been a thing easily confused, a feeling easily misplaced, but going forward there was clarity and Miranda gave Andy her due, looked at her in a slightly new way.

"What's that about, hmm?" Andy asked one evening when Lily was out at a dance in a nearby village. "That's twice today I've seen you looking at me that way."

"You're exactly right for me," Miranda said simply. "And that's a lovely thing to know."

"Lovely thing to hear," Andy said, smiling.

At Yom Kippur Miranda had observed the holiest day of the Jewish calendar with Andy, both of them fasting, but Miranda hadn't quite reached the point where she felt it necessary to ask atonement from God, for anything. She still wasn't sure that she believed in God, though she'd seen enough of hell-on-earth to believe in Satan, or at the very least, to believe that evil truly existed. She had a small hope that where evil existed, its complete opposite had to exist, too, and she'd seen enough goodness in her fellow humans to believe in goodness itself, and to think that goodness was worth fostering. But she still wasn't so sure about God.

She tried to remember how she'd felt as a child, and her memory showed her a little Miranda, barely five years old, wondering if God was real. If she'd doubted even as a child... Miranda decided that she'd keep on thinking about God, and maybe that might inspire faith, but beyond that possibility she didn't concern herself too much with the question.

To be Jewish had less to do with a belief in God than in a faithful observance of tradition and ritual. It was a birthright, after all, and was nothing like other religions, which all involved choice. Miranda and Andy were both ethnically Jewish; they could choose not to be practicing Jews, but they could no more cease to be Jewish than they could cease to breathe. Miranda had chosen to begin practicing again, and was comfortable to do so without much or even any faith in God. She was simply reclaiming her right to be who she was.

By mid-October the countryside around the chateau had quieted. The last report of any deserters had been on September twenty-ninth, and even then it had been a rumor. Elsewhere in France, the war raged on, and Miranda knew that that could mean that territory lost by Germany could be regained. Others scoffed at that idea, but those who'd seen combat with the Germans—even the cockiest and youngest American GIs, merely nodded their heads, acknowledging that possibility. There was no way that Germany could win the war, but even a badly beaten boxer could rally and throw a few good, stiff punches before being knocked out.

With that possibility in mind, Miranda regularly called meetings and made sure that the partisans remaining in her area stayed on their toes.

There were very few men left here now, and all of them old or else medically unfit for military service. There were also a few men, like Henri, who'd taken on official duties. Miranda had been surprised and pleased when Henri had arrived one morning and had asked if he could have his cottage back, as long as he could pay rent this time round. He'd applied to serve as a prefect in the the Department of Orléans, and his appointment had finally been given the nod. His job was a complicated one, but he waved off the word 'complicated' and said simply that he had to 'fix many things,' an understatement of the highest order. Before now he'd been in Lyon, visiting his parents. He was their only remaining child (his two older brothers had been killed in the Battle of France) and he'd promised them that he wouldn't sign up to serve in the new French Army.

"I never wanted to do that anyway," Henri rumbled. "No, my duty is at home, and once again this is my home. I never wanted to leave, you know."

"As a boy you had no choice but to go with your parents," Miranda said. "Anyway, yes. That cottage is yours, and it's as you left it, untouched. Alain will be so pleased to see you again, and Andrea will be properly overjoyed. She's missed you to the point where only mention of your name brings tears to her eyes."

"I love her like the little sister I never had," Henri said and lit a cigarette. "And I'm very proud of her... But I suppose when her name was in the honor lists in the newspaper, she only shrugged about it."

"She's still grumbling about the fact that she'll have to be polite to de Gaulle, one day."

"I know how she feels," Henri rumbled.

When Andy came in from egg-collecting, she nearly dropped the basket of eggs reserved for the chateau. Miranda chuckled and took the basket, and Andy practically flew into Henri's outstretched arms.

"What're you doing here?" Andy asked and smacked a kiss on his cheek.

"Working," he said, grinning. "I'm the new prefect."

"So you're staying here?"

" _Oui_."

"The only news better than that would be 'Germany: defeated,'" Andy stated and laughed.

"It's nice to be wanted," Henri said with a grin.

And he was wanted, in many ways. His job, for the meanwhile, involved settling minor disputes, and generally ensuring that the laws of the provisional government were upheld. He also kept a general eye on the countryside. During his first week on the job, Henri was called out to a small farm where a thief had been caught: a boy who was no more than twelve years old and an orphan. Orphans were part of Henri's job, too. He contacted the proper authorities and two kind women arrived within an hour to collect the boy.

On the whole, seeing as he was well-known in the area, and because he was already trusted, this job was perfect for him. He went everywhere on foot, or else borrowed Miranda's Renault if he had to get somewhere faster. One weekend Nigel and Andy colluded with someone who was perhaps less-than-legal in his activities, and that person 'found' a German motorcycle and sidecar for Henri, whereafter his rumbling transport matched his rumbling voice.

Henri's job also hastened the arrival of both electricity and a telephone line to the chateau and attached dwellings, namely Henri's cottage and the homes of Alain and Jeannette. The phone was something that the chateau residents quickly got into the habit of using, but for a while they had to remind each other to flip a light switch, rather than light a lamp or candle.

And it was the _vendange_ again, the last of the season, left quite late thanks to fine weather. Miranda looked at the old wine-press, and the electric lights hanging over it, and hoped that by this time next year she'd have a more modern wine-press. After all, it didn't do for her little dairy to be streets ahead of the winery: with the arrival of electricity, Andy had wasted no time in ordering a milking machine, an electric cream separator, and an electric butter churn. With all of that mechanical help, she easily milked all eighteen cows by herself, and Miranda agreed that it was time to expand their milking operation to twenty-four cows.

A rumble outside announced the arrival of Henri, who'd been in Paris today at a meeting.

"What's news?" Miranda asked.

"Oh, the usual," Henri said and lit a smoke. "I think maybe I'm the only prefect who lived in his district before he got appointed. So of course in other places, the people don't like their officials, some don't trust them. Luckily we have a wise commissioner who tells those men, 'No, you cannot have the authority to get people arrested just because they argue with you.' But that was Paris. It goes well here?"

"Andrea and Alain had to leave the picking to others today. The first report of deserters in nearly a month. This time, we've caught them and they're waiting for you to decide what to do with them."

Henri snorted smoke out of his nose, reminding Miranda of her bull on cold mornings.

"I still have to tell myself that now we have to follow the law," he rumbled. "Because now we have laws worth following."

"Andrea said much the same thing."

"How many of the bastards?"

"Three," Miranda said. "You can borrow the truck, toss them in the back."

"I'll do that," Henri said. He was about to walk away but paused and took a careful look at Miranda. "What's wrong, besides fucking _Boche_ deserters disturbing our peace here?"

"Just this morning I'd decided that I was going to contact Emily and ask her to bring my girls home. But now..."

Henri flicked his cigarette butt out into the growing dark. It landed on the paving stones, throwing up a spray of sparks.

" _Renarde_ , you must live," Henri said quietly.

Miranda watched him walk away until the gloom of dusk hid him from her view. He was right, she decided, and she went inside to make a trunk-call.

~ ~ ~

Andy checked her watch for the umpteenth time and on her way to the house she muttered cusses about the time dragging along more slowly than it had any right to. In the kitchen she found Jeannette and Miranda carefully rolling up a thin slab of frosted sponge cake.

"What's that?" Andy asked.

"You have never had _roulade?_ " Jeannette said.

"You might be confused because this one's frosted," Miranda said. "I'm sure you've had at least one slice of a jelly roll."

"I've had several more slices than one, yeah," Andy said. "So you replaced the jelly with frosting... Chocolate, too: I approve."

"So easy, this cake," Jeannette said. "But not with jam. That makes it tricky. It should be rolled hot, so that it doesn't break. If you use jam, and it's too hot..."

"Big mess," Miranda said while wiping her hands. "And this is my girls' favorite... Or it was. They may have developed a taste for another."

"Tsk!" Jeannette tutted, but gently. "Don't fret now. Even if they had a personal pastry chef, that person wasn't their mother."

Andy nodded her agreement, but didn't verbalize it. She had no idea how Miranda must be feeling, but that comment about the possibility of a new favorite snack said a good deal. Andy tried to put it into a context she could grasp, and that wasn't too difficult– she'd had no contact with her parents for years, and had lost track of the small changes in their lives, just as they'd lost track of the many changes in hers.

But she still loved her parents in the same way—actually, perhaps she loved them more: more broadly, more deeply. Cassidy and Caroline were very young and perhaps they didn't have as good a grasp on their emotions as yet, but Andy was pretty sure that they felt similarly about their mother, whom they had to miss just as badly as Andy missed her parents.

She had to do something about that, soon. It was possible now, with some wrangling, for Andy to get letters out of France. U-boats were still a worry, and the majority of coal and oil was being held in reserve for military purposes, but the odd ship still set sail from South Hampton or Portsmouth with mail, bound for the States or Canada.

"That's the expression you used to wear before going to blow up a bridge," Miranda said.

"Gotta put almost the same kinda planning into getting a letter to my folks," Andy said.

"Two heads are better than one, hmm? We'll work on that plan soon."

Andy nodded and accepted a kiss.

"Lovebirds," Jeannette teased. "And don't try to hide that."

Andy felt her face flush and she arched her brows at Miranda, a clear question.

"I never hid my affection for Alice," Miranda said.

" _Oui_ ," Jeannette said, wagging a well-meaning finger at Andy. "I said what I said to _you_."

"I should've brought it up before now, I suppose," Miranda said apologetically.

"You've had a lot on your mind," Andy said.

"Mmm," Miranda said, nodding. And: "Is it really today?"

"Yup. Yeah, it's really today," Andy chuckled and squeezed Miranda's shoulders. "Finally today already. If Jeannette can spare you, let's take a walk?"

"Good idea," Jeannette said. "Go, _filez_."

"She says that if the garden hens get in here," Andy chortled.

"I prefer 'Shoo!'" Miranda said, amused.

"It means the same. So? Go now. Go, go," Jeannette said, laughing.

Miranda and Andy took their banishment in-stride, literally, and though they walked hand-in-hand, their pace was brisk. These days Miranda wasn't often wound tight, but when she was Andy knew that she liked a good walk, one bordering on a hike. Today they headed up the northeast slope, all the way to the oak woods at the top of the hill. The men who'd once camped here had been good about clearing away most every sign of their stay, and Miranda had paid a group of children to go over the old campsites to pick up any stray items of litter, like the odd tin can and the occasional twist of an empty toothpaste tube. That had been nearly two months ago.

It was almost November now, and the few leaves still gracing the oaks were all a deep gold, and at their stately feet lay more fallen gold, drifted ankle-deep in places. The two women followed the slight swale left by the old hay road, one made more definite by two tanks and two half-tracks. They came to the clearing where that armor had once stood camouflaged, along with the three antitank guns. Miranda's boulder stood to one side of the clearing, and Andy remembered the nights when many had gathered in this place to hear their leader speak.

"Looks so different in daylight," she said.

"But in a year or so, it'll look simply as it should," Miranda said. "As it used to before this cursed war."

"I dunno. Maybe, for you," Andy said, allowing memories to crowd in. They weren't bad; it didn't hurt. "For me, though... I'll have to learn to see it as it should be, but I'm not gonna rush that."

"No, don't," Miranda said softly, almost a whisper.

She turned round and round, on the spot, and Andy leaned against that lonely boulder, watching her lover.

"Whatcha doing?" Andy asked.

"Taking it back, making it ours again," Miranda murmured. "We'll have to do that all through France, all of us. It's not enough to kick them out. We have to plant our feet, call France our own. We have to remember, always, that we all would've died for this day and every one that follows it."

"I'll never forget," Andy said, and she knew that this clearing would never seem ordinary to her. She didn't want to, but she checked her watch, and said, "We should get back. Time's not dawdling, for once."

"It's so annoying when it does. The last four days have dragged horribly," Miranda said.

They set off again at that same brisk pace, but as they neared the house, Miranda's breath caught and she took off at a run. Andy sprinted after her and was in time to see Miranda catch two red-haired girls to her and seemingly squeeze half the life out of them. Andy kept her eyes on that little reunion for a while, until she had her arms full of another redhead.

"Missed you, goose," Emily said and kissed Andy's cheeks.

"Not the same here without you," Andy grumbled, instead of crying. Emily couldn't stay even one night, and Andy didn't want to think about that. She demanded, "When can you come back?"

"Quite soon, actually," Emily said while wiping lipstick off of Andy's cheek. "Chapman looked at my service record and nearly blew his top when he found out I'd not had any furlough since I started in France. I was supposed to get time off every fifteen months, maximum. I've two weeks off starting next Friday, and I plan on spending ten of those days here."

"Oh _good_ ," said Miranda. "Andrea?"

"Yeah," Andy said, smiling at two curious expressions. "Hi. Only your mom calls me that. I'm Andy. How do I tell you two apart?"

"I got more freckles."

"That's Cassidy. I'm Caroline."

"And you hung on to your American accents even in Scotland?" Andy asked.

"Yeah, but it was _hard_ ," Cassidy said.

"And sometimes we say 'Aye' instead of 'Yes,'" Caroline confessed.

"I'll be rowing that boat soon, no doubt," Emily drawled. "The Scots are bloody infectious, aren't they?"

"Aye," Caroline said.

"See?" Cassidy said.

"Oh dear," Miranda chuckled. "You know what Jeannette and I baked for you?"

" _Roulade?_ " the twins chorused, their expressions hopeful.

"Make sure you say Hello to Jeannette _first_ ," Miranda said.

The girls made promises to that effect even while sprinting away to the house. Miranda stood and watched until they disappeared inside, then turned to Emily and kissed her cheek.

"Thank you."

"Least I could do," Emily said. She opened her attaché case and handed Miranda an envelope. "That arrived about three weeks ago."

"Stephen's handwriting..." Miranda said, tearing open the envelope. She read for a while and smirked before stuffing a rather formal-looking document back into the envelope. She kissed Andy soundly, and said, "I just have to get this notarized and sent back, and I'm officially all yours."

"Seems to be Good News Day," Andy chuckled.

"I think it is," Emily said and took out another envelope. "Addressed to the both of you."

"Nate's handwriting," Andy said.

The three women stood in the sun and read a typical soldier's letter made unusual in that it had been penned by no fewer than four soldiers: Nate, Pierre, Michel, and Tomas. The four of them had managed to stick together, and hoped to continue together. Their letter was filled with anecdotes about daily life, and the occasional funny thing that had happened, but it also carried word of possible hard fighting ahead. The Germans were committed to hold the Ardennes and Pierre's scouts predicted that any battle fought in that region would be equally dangerous to both sides. It wasn't enough that two mortal enemies would be pitted against each other; the Ardennes winters were notoriously cold and long, and that cold alone was likely to claim many lives.

"Pierre was born there, in the French Ardennes," Miranda said. "He knows what he's talking about. I think you should show this letter to Chapman, Emily."

"I was going to ask if I could," she said. "And it's obviously the Ardennes that he's talking about, even though he's careful not to name it. He deliberately aimed to get past the Censor, knowing you'd poke the right people."

"With your help," Miranda said. "And yes, I'm not nearly done with my honorary rank of general."

"And rumor has it there's an MBE with your name on it," Emily said lightly.

"A-what?" Andy asked.

"Honorary Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire," Emily said, smirking. "I've never seen her gobsmacked before, have you?"

"Not quite as gobsmacked as that," Andy chortled.

Miranda rubbed her cheek and slowly shook her head.

"Good grief..." she murmured.

"You certainly earned it," Emily said seriously. "And given this latest mission you've assigned me, as you said, you've not finished earning it. I never doubted you'd end up with a long list of letters after your name, Miranda, and 'MBE' among them is fitting."

"No arguments here," Andy said.

"But it makes me feel even worse, thinking about James and Christian and others," Miranda said.

Emily frowned in confusion and asked what Miranda meant, and Miranda and Andy explained as best they could.

"I'll be having a word with Chapman about that," Emily said and angrily lit a cigarette. "Of all the bloody _nerve_. I mean, I've known for a while that the Yanks have their heads up their arses, but this is just... Well, it's too far beyond the pale to ignore."

"This is an order," Miranda said firmly. "What's beyond that pale needs to be left there. If you meddle it could mean a lot of trouble for James and Christian, but James in particular. The US military is not known to be kind to servicemen of color. The only reason that James was assigned here is because his mother was born here and he speaks French like a born-and-bred Parisian."

"My God," Emily muttered. And: "You know, that's the first time I've thought of his race."

"It's not like that in the States," Andy said. "You got no idea what it took for Lily to get into college. My parents had to help and write letters to a lot of influential people and get them to speak for Lily before she was admitted for her art degree. And it didn't end there. If both Doug and I went down with the flu, Lily stayed away from campus, too, because she needed one or both of us to make sure she wasn't hassled. See why Lily wants to stay here? See why James will bust his ass to get back here?"

"Yes, I see," Emily said. "I see that what many proudly call 'the greatest nation on earth' is not so very great."

"I don't see any colored folks in your House of Commons, Em," Andy said.

"Because our last much-vaunted, highly-decorated, and most worthy very not-white member of parliament died just before this bloody war broke out. And he wasn't simply a man of color. Oh no, he was openly homosexual, and an Iraqi Jew."

"Sir Philip Sassoon," Miranda said. "I attended his funeral, and it still shocks me to say as much. He was only fifty... And about all his decorations: Andrea, you'll never catch Americans giving their equivalent of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George to any person of color."

"What would that equivalent be?" Emily asked.

"The Congressional Gold Medal, I should think."

"Wow," Andy mumbled. "Really?"

"He was a Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire, too," Emily said. " _Really_. He was also a Privy councilor and First Commissioner of Works, something like town-planner for all of Britain. Before that he was Under-secretary of State for Air, rather much the junior manager of the Air Force."

"And he was a very, very popular politician," Miranda said. "If he hadn't died, it's not a far stretch of the imagination to see him as Prime Minister."

"We'd have clamored to vote him in on a landslide," Emily said, nodding. "But you know, I don't think he ever wanted that hot-seat."

"Possibly not. He used to come here twice a year for several cases of wine and we'd end up talking about French politics, but we hardly ever talked about Britain's politics. And visiting him... Well, the only one of Philip's party guests who'd hold forth on politics was Churchill. Of course."

"Father complains that Sir Winston's had such an interesting life but has become the most dull one-track conversationalist."

"Wait-wait," Andy said, blinking. "You two know Winston Churchill?"

"Andy, few people _know_ Sir Winston, but an awful lot of us have had to put up with him," Emily drawled.

"That's a good way to put it," Miranda chuckled.

"And not many of us like him for a peacetime Prime Minister, you know," Emily said. "For now he's the best man for the job. I think he might get the axe, just as soon as the war's over."

"After that, who'd get your vote?" Miranda asked.

"Sir Clement Attlee. He's got the experience we'll need."

"So you wouldn't vote Churchill back?" Andy said.

"Not a chance," Emily said. "Britain needs a Labor government now. The Conservatives will both start and win every war in the world, but if you need to rebuild after those wars, you give the job to Labor."

"That makes sense. What little I know of Attlee... Well, I like him better than de Gaulle," Andy said. "But I'll be stuck with de Gaulle, so I'd better learn to grit my teeth and bear him."

"He's a scrapper and that's somewhat worrying to me," Miranda said, frowning. "Still, I don't think anyone else could've done what he has."

"I'll give him that," Andy said, in complete agreement. "But like you said, he's a scrapper, a fella who hoped since he was a kid that there'd be a war with Germany. He got what he wanted, twice, and it needles me that what he wanted got so many killed, and they're still dying. I can't wholly trust a career-soldier who's always wanted to be a career-soldier in the hope that he'd get a war to fight in. If anyone wants to know why a lot of Americans don't trust de Gaulle, that's it, right there."

"Be careful saying that around Frenchmen, though," Emily said.

"It's funny," Andy said. "You can tell right away who's actually risked their life for this country– they don't give de Gaulle blanket praise. But the ones who just hoped that August twenty-fifth would come? The ones who never even thought about fighting after the surrender back in Forty? Them you'll hear crowing about de Gaulle; they're the loudest Gaullists on the block. Lucky for him that there's a lot more of those people than there are of us, the ones who actually fought. If it was the other way around, in the first elections de Gaulle would go down to men like Chaban—Jacques Delmas and Maurice Kriegel and even our own Jack Basson. All three of those men were organizing resistance efforts just days after the French surrender in Forty, weeks and weeks before de Gaulle called for them."

"Expect Jack's entrance into politics," Miranda said. "And I'll be backing him all the way."

"Wish I could give him a vote," Emily said.

"I dunno if I'll be allowed to give him my vote," Andy said. "Although there might be a proper French government by that stage, and I'll be able to apply for citizenship."

"So you've made a firm decision there?" Emily asked.

Andy nodded and, as was often the case these days, whenever she thought about that decision she looked around, at the land and the sky, and if she was near, at Miranda.

"I'm here for good," Andy said, certain.

Emily left directly after lunch, and though Andy was sad to see her go (again), she was soon distracted: the twins demanded to hear the "love story." Andy's immediate reaction to that was to go rather pink in the face, not least because Miranda and Jeannette were laughing their heads off. Andy huffed and was about to ask Miranda to tell the "love story" when Lily walked in through the back door.

"What's so funny—Oh, you two are here already," Lily said and put her bag down.

"Are you Lily?" Cassidy asked.

"Yeah, that's me. Did I miss Emily?"

"'fraid so," Andy said. "But she'll be back soon, for ten whole days."

"Good," Lily said, her tone teasing. "Then maybe you'll quit looking like a lovesick calf half the time."

" _Lovesick_..." Andy drawled and rolled her eyes.

"You love Emily, too?" Caroline asked.

"Of course she does," Miranda said. "When people fight together and face great risks... Well, that's the sort of love that lasts a lifetime. You can ask Henri about it, and Uncle Nigel, too, and I can tell you about it: rock-solid."

"So that's why you and Andy love each other," Caroline said.

"That's part of it," Lily said. "Mostly, they just fit and work together, like the gears in a watch."

"But as to why _that_ is so, that's more complicated," Miranda said. "And I have to dig up some ancient history to explain it. I wrote it all to you, once, in a letter that thankfully needs never be sent to you now..."

While Miranda talked about her childhood, Lily and Jeannette made quiet excuses to be elsewhere, and Andy was left mostly to observe. By their rapt little expressions Andy knew that the twins were hearing every word for the first time, and that made sense: Miranda had told Andy several times that she never lied to her children, and in order not to lie to them about her upbringing, she hadn't spoken of it until now. She was interrupted every now and then with questions, and sometimes those questions came Andy's way, too, though more often from Miranda than from the girls. Miranda and Judaism had drifted apart, but Andy's relationship with her faith was closer, and completely unfettered by bad childhood memories. That being so she became Miranda's reference, or else something of a rock, the only bit of stable ground in an unquiet sea.

"I'd never subject you two to the way I was raised," Miranda told her daughters. "I never thought to even tell you that you're Jewish. But then the world changed and war was and is being made against Jews, and Andrea became a part of my life. Who you are is important, though I don't expect anything to come of that knowledge except that you be aware of it, that you remember. We don't know how many thousands of us the Nazis have killed, and for much of this war, the rest of the world didn't believe that that was happening. We can never forget, my girls, because the rest of the world will certainly forget, eventually. So it's up to us to make sure that something like this great disaster never befalls the Jewish people again."

"So it's true, what we weren't s'posed to hear?" Cassidy said.

"The grownups were talking and we were s'posed to be asleep," Caroline said. "They were talking about big prisons, but they called them camps, all for Jews only."

"Not only Jews, but a lot of Jews," Andy said. "The Nazis locked up people who disagreed with them politically, like pacifists and communists, and they also locked up Gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals... Huh. The Gestapo tossed me in one of those camps, but at the time my only 'fault' was being Jewish. Anyhow, a concentration camp isn't the fun kinda camp, trust me. They're horrible places, where the Nazis work us to death, or just kill us."

"But why?" Caroline asked.

"The Germans wanted someone to blame for all their troubles," Miranda said. "And Hitler was already an anti-Semite, a Jew-hater, so he decided to kill two birds with one stone: he'd conquer most of Europe and get rid of all the Jews while he was at it. We became the scapegoat, the people he blamed for all of Germany's ills."

"In a nutshell," Andy said. "But don't ask us how he got all the German people to go along with it. I sure as hell have no clue how a whole country went nuts."

"They sure sound loopy," Cassidy said, frowning. Then: "But we're winning now, right?"

"Yes, we're winning," Miranda said. "But the war's not yet over, and we still have to be careful. Sometimes we still have trouble here, but we deal with _that_. Henri's the district prefect now, and he has a small army of partisan women who stand no mischief from anyone... And did you two ever read in the paper about someone called _la Rabouilleuse?_ "

Andy rolled her eyes and glowered at Miranda.

"We read about—Andy?" Cassidy giggled.

"Wow! You blew up bridges and stuff?" Caroline said.

"And stuff, yeah," Andy chuckled. "And don't be surprised if my good rep takes a tumble. By now lots of French people are realizing that all of us who blew up their bridges and railways have made life really hard for them. I've already heard that the American Army Corps of Engineers doesn't like me much. They say my bridge-wrecking method always did too good a job. If any of them get assigned to fix the first one I blew up, I'll probably never hear the end of it."

"Andrea might've used just a little too much TNT," Miranda said dryly. "One moment the bridge was there and the next it was _gone_. I think Hitler might've heard the bang in Berlin."

"Everyone still rags me about that," Andy said over the girls' giggles. "Anyhow, we wanna hear what you two did in Scotland. Was it cold last winter?"

"Real cold."

"With heaps of snow. We learned how to ski."

"And we tobogganed a lot."

Miranda kept her girls prattling on about snowball fights and the friends they'd made despite whomping them with snowballs. Andy listened to reports of many little adventures, but with half an ear, most of her attention given to Miranda, whom Andy had never seen happier. That was exactly as it should've been.

The girls were tired out by nine p.m, their usual bedtime, and Andy stood in their bedroom doorway watching their mother tucking them in. By now she'd figured out that those two could be little hellions, and as far as Andy was concerned, that was going to make life interesting.

"Well, we'll see," Miranda said while pouring a glass of sherry for them both. "They're pranksters and I've encouraged that because I never got to be one of those. I often had the urge, but I never dared... I want them to have all the fun they can, even if it's mischief."

"If they screw up along the way, they'll learn," Andy said and clinked her glass to Miranda's. "Wanna go out onto the porch?"

"Yes."

It was cold out, but last year they'd learned to like that. Tonight, as they had on many other nights, they sat close and comfortable and sipped in companionable silence. When at last their glasses were empty, and a shared cheroot, smoked small, had been given the dignity of burning itself out, Andy gave Miranda a hand up. Still-necessary pistols went into the pockets of their coats, and they went indoors.

In their room they readied for bed in something of a hurry: it was warmer indoors but not nearly tropical. Andy crawled under the covers and yawned, and she expected that Miranda would turn out the lamp immediately. Not so– Miranda settled under the covers, on her side, and regarded her lover, her expression thoughtful.

"What's that about?" Andy asked.

"Black triangles," Miranda said. "The Nazis force women like us wear black triangles; pink for male homosexuals... We'll win the war, Germany will be defeated, but what they attempted to do won't be forgotten. I think the most dangerous aspect of it all is not the evident threat to life and limb that war represents, but the ideology that's been introduced. There are many loyal French who hate the Nazis but who don't call all of their ideology wrong: anti-Semites and racists and those who hate homosexuals, to name only a few."

Andy held a light for the cigarette that Miranda had been fiddling with. She took a drag and blew the smoke away almost at once, a sure sign that she had more to say.

"But those fools will be reminded that the law is on our side and that won't change," Miranda said. "The French are far too proud of the laws that show them to be a forward-thinking people. Homosexuality is not against the law in this country, and it never will be against the law, but one can't legislate against opinion, and those who hate us have been able and will continue to be able to be open in their hatred of us. As I see it, when this war is over, several new ones will begin."

"Maybe they've begun already," Andy said, frowning. "I mean, François mentioned that Pierre Le Clos has chosen not to make his club a men-only venue again, because he's worried it'll attract the wrong kind of attention. I misunderstood; I thought he meant that he might have trouble with the police—"

"I think he will, but not because of rowdy parties," Miranda said. "They'll simply use the rowdy parties as an excuse to victimize Le Clos' homosexual patrons, and seeing as the Vichy law regarding the age-of-consent has not yet been struck, if any of those patrons are under the age of twenty-one, the police can even make arrests." 

"But that law's likely to be struck, along with all the other Vichy laws, right?"

"That's the general opinion, yes. At any rate, if Le Clos maintains his club as all-welcome, that's a way to get around any trouble."

"And so what d'you think all of this means for us, you and me?" Andy asked.

"Not much out here, I shouldn't think," Miranda said. "In cities, less freedom to be ourselves. Then again, I've always been more cautious when in cities in this country, even when in company with Stephen. Certainly, out here in the country one faces the sort of people who are more traditional in their views, but in French cities people are more outspoken in their opinions. They may never be direct, because not even they would be so rude as all that. But they needn't be direct if they're in the company of like-minded friends, and they all make sure that their conversation is overheard: there are far more ways than one, to issue a threat. While I dived head-first into a war, I'm not the sort of person who deliberately stirs strife on a personal level, unless I feel cornered."

"Miranda, who in their right mind is ever gonna corner _you_ about anything?" Andy asked, her expression wry. "And I really can't see anyone daring to be devious about it, and just saying loud enough to be overheard what they think about homosexuals."

"I suppose you have a point," Miranda chuckled. "And I might say the same of you, and so... Yes, I think you and I are fortunate in our reputations, which were hard-won and are deserved. But I think we should be aware, now, that others can't rely on their reputations alone to act as something of a shield. We'll be putting away our guns for good, soon, but I think we might end up fighting for others again, at some stage."

"Count me in," Andy said firmly. "There's no way I'll keep quiet if, for example, Le Clos lets us know that his homosexual patrons are being singled out and hassled by a few asshole police. Or anyone else, for that matter."

"Mmm," Miranda said with a small nod. After a moment she smiled at Andy, and said, "Alone, each of us is a handful, but together? We're a force to be reckoned with."

"I'd never categorize you-alone as only a handful," Andy said. She rolled onto her back and tugged Miranda on top of her. Andy slipped her hands into Miranda's pajama pants and fondled her ass. "Two handfuls, at least."

"I think you have an obsession with my _derriere_ ," said Miranda.

"Is that a complaint?" Andy giggled.

"Uh-uh..." Miranda mumbled through a kiss.

~ ~ ~

Emily's ten days of vacation had passed far too quickly, and when she'd left Miranda had been just as unhappy about it as Andy and Henri were. Miranda hadn't expected to see Emily again for at least a month, but less than a fortnight after she'd left, she was back. As soon as Miranda had laid eyes on her, she'd left the boxing of wine bottles to others. Emily was in battle-dress, tin-hat on her head and puttees over her boot-tops, and she was armed with a pistol and Sten: that all spelled official business.

"What's wrong?" Miranda said by way of greeting.

"Nothing wrong as such, but I've some news for Andy. I was ordered to deliver it personally."

Miranda nodded and asked Alain where Andy was. Miranda and Emily ended up traipsing out to one of the sheep pastures, and Andy spotted them before they could hail her. She came jogging up to the fence, her expression worried.

"As far as I know, everyone's all right," Emily said at once. "My news is for you. We had word that the Free French are approaching Natzweiler. They'll be there by tomorrow latest. With no-one to fight along the way, it's only a few hours' drive from here. It's been cleared from rather high up: if you want to be there, we can arrange that, and even the Americans would like it. There'll be trials after the war, and if you're willing to testify—"

" _Willing?_ Em, that's my duty and it's got not a fuckin' thing to do with willingness," Andy stated and vaulted over the fence. She walked ahead, saying over her shoulder, "When do we leave?"

Emily said that there was a car waiting and she and Miranda had to jog to keep up with Andy's long legs.

Miranda didn't want to leave her girls alone, but just as Andy had spoken of duty, so Miranda felt it was hers to go along. The girls were at school in the village down the road, but Alain fetched them. By the time they arrived, Miranda and Andy were packed, armed, and ready to go.

"Will ya be gone long?" Cassidy asked.

"A few days, at most," Miranda said and hugged her daughters. "We'll be back as soon as possible. But we really must go and do this. I'd not leave if it wasn't necessary, darlings."

"Don't get shot again, okay?" Caroline grumbled.

"Hopefully I'll neither get shot nor have to shoot anyone. You two be good and try not to give poor Lily grey hairs."

"Given how many you've got..." Lily drawled.

"We didn't give 'em to Mom."

"Yeah, she had 'em already when we were born."

Miranda decided that now was not the time to be properly honest about that: she hadn't had a single grey until she'd found out she was pregnant with twins. She kissed her girls goodbye and climbed into a covered Jeep with Emily and Andy.

Their driver was someone whom Andy knew. Pvt. Stepman greeted Miranda respectfully and showed her how to clip her Thompson into a rack over the dash.

"No jokes today, Stepman?" Andy asked.

"Not on this ride," he said as he engaged first gear. "Ain't nothin' to laugh about, headed where we're going."

"Can't say I wanna argue," Andy said. "But we gotta talk about something, right? How're you fellas doing generally?"

"To be real honest, lotsa stuff's in a big mess," Stepman said and shifted a little in his seat, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "At the coast we got a lotta guys and—pardon my mention—but what we should have is what the Krauts had: brothels. Instead we got ladies of expensive favors doing business where they shouldn't, and some guys are getting in trouble. I mean, _every day_. The French are locking up their daughters and that's smart, cos some guys... Like I said, it's a big damn mess."

"But why haven't your brass set up brothels?" Miranda said. "It makes the most sense, and needless to say, the concept's not a new one."

"Ma'am, given how much trade those places would get, word would make its way home. Can you even imagine? I mean, we got most of everything we use thanks to women working in factories back home. Lotsa those women are wives, sweethearts, and there's that old saying about a woman scorned, right?"

"You've just given me the start of a headache," Miranda said and huffed, rubbing at her forehead. "Rather your brass than me."

"I'll say," Emily drawled. "And I'll ask plainly: what about the men charged with rape?"

"They're getting brought up on those charges, and kept confined until courts martial find 'em guilty or not. Thing is, I reckon too many aren't getting what they should."

"Great," Andy snarked. "Just what we need... Stepman, when you get back, spread the word that those assholes had better watch their backs. I've got a whole crowd of women with real itchy trigger-fingers, and they're only a few out of a lot of women like that. We've shot and hanged plenty of raping Kraut deserters, but they could just as easily have been Americans. We've had enough of _any_ men pushing us around."

"I hear ya," Stepman said with a small grin.

Miranda imagined that Stepman might just take a certain amount evil joy in spreading that little bit of truth around. Whether it would have any effect remained to be seen. Given the hundreds of thousands of Allied men coming into France, that truthful rumor probably wouldn't have the effect that any of them hoped for.

Some distance along the road, it ended, and Emily giggled at Stepman's mild cussing.

"Sorry, we'll have to find another route," Andy mumbled.

"I think you used just a tad too much TNT on this bridge, too, darling," Miranda said lightly.

" _Just a tad?_ " Stepman drawled. "There ain't even stumps where the piers were. God... _damn_."

"There's an old ford a few miles that way," Miranda chuckled.

"Yeah, me and my crew used it that night," Andy said and cleared her throat. "Didn't look as bad in the dark..."

"Nothin' ever does," Stepman said and laughed.

Some miles from that busted bridge they came to one less busted, but still decidedly unusable, and the river was forded again. Andy took more ragging in-stride, and mentioned that from here on, any other wrecked bridges would've been someone else's handiwork.

"We outa your territory now?" Stepman asked.

"Yup, though I walked along this river, after I got out of that camp," Andy said.

"How'd you escape?" Stepman asked.

"Killed ol' Alfred Jodl's nephew before he could rape me, and I ran... I'm not keeping quiet about that anymore."

"Jodl's nephew. Geez. I'd a-kept that under my hat, too," Stepman said.

"But not anymore," Andy said firmly. "If the Gestapo try send someone after me, _now?_ Goddamn fools can get what they deserve."

"I doubt they have the manpower, or the resources," Emily said.

Miranda agreed with that, but she felt firmly that if the Gestapo did manage to deploy someone, then she'd prove to him that his had been a suicide mission: she had a trench-gun with his name on it.

They caught up with an advancing column of Americans by four p.m, and the major in command told them that the French column was a few kilometers ahead. He told Stepman that he could go ahead and stay with the French because the American column would join the French shortly after sundown.

"Best keep those helmets buckled on, ladies," the major said. "We've had some ordnance lobbed our way."

"Barrages or potshots?" Miranda asked.

"The latter, a shell or three," the major said. "Nothing sustained."

"They're running away, but making sure to slow you down at the same time," Miranda said.

"I'd do the same, were I them. Any idea where they might be running to?"

"Either straight to Germany, or they're in a hurry to meet up with reinforcements," Emily said.

"We've eavesdropped on enough POWs and rounded-up deserters to know how the Krauts think," Andy said. "See ya round, Major."

He waved them off, and seeing as the road was a good one, Stepman gave the Jeep a little extra gas. He mentioned that faster was also much safer, when someone might be trying to aim a howitzer at them. Miranda and her two companions didn't argue that point at all.

Within twenty or so minutes the French column came into view, and by now it was a camp, with men and armor settled for the night in the woods lining either side of the road. By the time they got out of the Jeep it was heading into dusk but Andy had her eyes on something halfway up the mountainside to the north. Miranda looked that way and could vaguely make out rows of what looked like barracks. From here they looked tiny.

"That's it," Andy said, eyes glued to those buildings. "That's Natzweiler."

Miranda couldn't imagine how Andy felt, and now was neither the time nor the place to ask, especially given that someone was approaching them briskly. He greeted them with smiles and handshakes and offhandedly gave his rank of lieutenant-colonel in a way that told Miranda that he genuinely didn't think much of it. He gave them the freedom of his first name, Yves, and said that they might meet up with Jack Basson tomorrow.

"What's Jack up to these days?" Emily asked.

"Making sure that France is always far ahead of America," Yves drawled. "There's a rumor that de Gaulle himself gave Jack this task. If it's true it's not surprising, and I recognize its necessity. The Americans originally spoke strongly for France becoming one of the Western Allied occupied territories. Without de Gaulle arguing and even fighting with Roosevelt and Churchill, this country would now be British- and American-controlled soil."

"I'd suspected something like that," Miranda said, annoyed.

"Bloody cheek, you ask me," Emily said through her teeth.

Yves agreed with a very French drawn-out shrug, and asked if they'd like some coffee. They followed him to what he called his 'command corner' and at the scent of good coffee Andy snapped out of her quiet spell. She asked after Jack almost as if she hadn't heard a word said earlier, and perhaps she hadn't. Yves pretended that he didn't notice, and Emily and Miranda played the same game while sharing a surreptitious worried glance.

As the evening wore on Andy seemed to settle and relax as much as one could in the middle of a war-zone. She became properly present again and out came her confidence, enough to firmly argue with the American major, Rills, about just how easy the majority of the Parisians' war had _not_ been.

"Ever eaten a Jerusalem artichoke, Major?"

"Can't say I have. Unpleasant, is it?"

"I know a fella who can do amazing things with Jerusalem artichokes, but he's a chef, and as he once told me, it usually takes a proper _Cordon Bleu_ chef to make those damn things taste any good. And Jerusalem artichokes and old rutabagas were sometimes all that a lot of Parisians had to eat. Food's still a problem there. Just about everything they're getting now is supplied by you fellas and the Limeys."

"And we had no choice but to make things harder for them," Emily said. "We rather much destroyed France's rail system."

"And despite the fact that many Parisians were weak and thin, they still came out to fight," Miranda said. "Easy? No. Unless they were _Vichyste_ they've not had it easy."

"The _Vichyste_ aren't having it easy now," Yves said. "I can't find it in myself to be sorry for them, but we're going to have to do that, eventually. For France to move forward, France must heal."

"I was thinking," Rills said. "Your situation now is a little like ours after the Civil War. I'll tell ya, you Frenchies had better not think that all that healing's gonna happen overnight. Back home, lots of people still bear each other grudges over that War Betwixt the States. Sure, that was a full-blown civil war, but it really was not much different to what went on here between loyal French and traitor Vichy collaborators. Just understand that some people are never gonna forgive, on both sides. Way I see it, moving forward involves keeping those people in mind, and simultaneously finding ways to make sure they get sidelined."

"But then we'll have some of the same problems the US still does," Andy said. "The way Reconstruction was handled after the Civil War directly contributed to most of the South still hating colored folks. The last thing we need here is people stubbornly remaining loyal to Pétain, because they feel he's the only one who'd stand up for them, politically."

"Pétain should face a firing squad," Yves said. "But the trouble there is that it would make him a martyr."

"That's the last thing France needs," Emily said. "Look back to _our_ civil war: if Cromwell hadn't allowed King Charles to be executed, we'd not have a monarchy right now."

"I agree," Rills said. "Cromwell failed to take a longer, broader view... But I like your King George."

"He's the People's King, yes," Emily said, her smile wry. "And he's rather pro-American, too."

"We noticed," Rills said, laughing.

He headed off to bed shortly after that, and in Yves' command corner, he and his guests settled down for the night, too.

It was bitterly cold by now and the three women huddled together under a combined pile of blankets, with Andy in the middle. Miranda doubted that Andy had picked up on the decidedly protective nature of that huddle, but given the looks they'd shared earlier, Emily was of one mind with Miranda: they were here to support Andy.

Miranda didn't know what they'd find at that camp tomorrow, and in many ways she was dreading their arrival there. But she'd go; like Emily, she would go and she wouldn't leave Andy's side.

The next day they'd been rolling ahead for a few hours when they met with Jack Basson and several of his men in two half-tracks. Jack had a bandaged hand and others of his men sported hasty field-dressings, too. He reported that they'd encountered what looked like retreating Germans.

"But we can't be sure," Jack said while Miranda examined his wounded hand. "It might be that they're just trailing behind a column that has a definite purpose. I've ordered the same thing, and any small and fast-moving groups of my men then are able to tell us that we're being followed."

"It's a good strategy," Yves said. To Miranda he said, "How bad is it?"

"Do you have a surgeon, Yves? No? Damn," Miranda said. "These two fingers need to come off, I'm afraid."

"I thought so," Jack said and took a belt of brandy from Miranda's hip flask. "A piece of shrapnel hit my hand, and it was also slammed against a rock... You can do it."

Miranda merely nodded and got on with it, with Emily's help, and with Andy gripping Jack's free right hand. No anesthetic, and yet he barely made a sound, and Miranda said a heartfelt prayer of thanks for all the books she'd read, and for all the country surgeons she'd assisted over the years. Jack's stitched hand was bandaged and his mangled fingers were buried. Miranda took a look at his injured men, but their wounds had been within the sphere of care offered by three good corpsmen.

"It doesn't hurt much anymore," Jack said of his hand.

"Yeah, yeah. You're one tough bastard, Basson," Rills said. "So. How d'you think we should proceed?"

"Directly," Jack said. "If we encounter the enemy, well, we are over a thousand men here, more than enough to deal with them."

"All right," Rills said and marched off to brief his officers.

Jack got up and hugged Miranda's shoulders with his good arm.

"Thank you."

"Just take care to re-dress that hand twice a day," Miranda said.

"I will," Jack promised, nodding. "And will you three come with me now, or will you stay with Yves?"

"With you," Andy said.

Yves agreed without fuss, and the three women boarded a half-track with Jack. Within an hour they met with the rest of his men, many of whom knew Miranda, Andy, and Emily, and who greeted them like old friends.

With Jack's two-hundred in the lead, the thousand-strong column pushed ahead rapidly. They began to encounter resistance shortly after a brief lunch-break, and this time Jack and others were sure that these Germans were the advance units of a column ordered to slow down the Allied column.

So they ended up in a pitched battle, less than an hour's drive from Natzweiler. Rills ordered his mortar crews ahead and supported them with five tanks, and Yves and Jack led their infantry in a sweep around the left flank. Miranda, Emily, Andy, and Stepman were in the rear by then, with Jack's signal corps, and one of those men was in constant radio contact with Jack. Eventually he nodded to a man who fired two Very flares. The American mortars and tanks ceased fire, and their supporting infantry charged straight ahead. From up ahead were soon heard the fierce yells of charging infantrymen, and much small arms fire.

"It won't last," said the radioman. " _Commandant_ Basson said they were facing about four-hundred _Boche_ , and Rills' mortars and tanks were knocking them down everywhere. Even if those _Boche_ fight to the last man, it will be all over, soon."

His prediction proved out: in less than an hour he told Miranda that the remainder of the German column had surrendered, and they were just a tenth of their original four-hundred.

Andy interrogated one of the captured Germans who told her that they'd been the last proper column for miles.

"How much of a fight will we have, getting that camp free?" Rills asked.

Andy translated and the German soldier frowned and shook his head.

"There's no-one there, except maybe some guards. No prisoners there. They were evacuated in September."

Andy translated and Rills nodded.

"We've heard of that before. The Russians say that as soon as Allied guys approach an area, the Krauts get everyone out of camps, on forced marches to somewhere safer."

" _Forced marches?_ " Andy growled. "When people are skin'n'bone, forced marches will kill 'em."

"Yes, ma'am," Rills said quietly, his expression apologetic. "That's right. We've had reports of Ruskies finding trails of dead, either just left to die, or bayoneted, or shot."

One of the Germans nodded and got Andy's attention.

"The ones who die or get killed make the overall number smaller, when they get to another camp. The commanders use the hardest men to drive the prisoners; they handpick those men, who show no mercy. You understand? This is a very deliberate, calculated strategy."

Andy nodded and walked away, and Miranda and Emily left Stepman and others to translate for Rills. They followed Andy and eventually caught up with her at the head of the column.

"Let's go," Andy said to Jack. "I wanna get this done and over-with. Let's go."

Jack's answer was a simple nod, and he picked an advance team of several men. They left in two half-tracks and were soon on the narrow, steep road that led up to the camp. Andy muttered about the number of men who'd died along this road. Those who weren't trucked away to work elsewhere were employed in the small quarry here.

"The stone coulda been piled up down there, but the asshole guards made those men push barrows of stone up this hill. That was work meant to kill people and probably killed a couple every fuckin' day."

The powerful half-tracks were crawling up that steep road, literally unable to go any faster. If anyone claimed in future that pushing stone up this hill was a reasonable form of hard labor, Miranda would likely fly into a rage. She suppressed a shudder when thinking of how Andy might react; Miranda told herself not to take that mental path again, not for a while.

When they reached the gates, two guards rushed to open them, then stood to one side with their hands held high above their heads. Andy jumped down from the half-track and approached the two guards, her Sten held in hands that were relaxed but ready to use it.

"Go fetch your comrades, tell them to form up here at the gates," she told them in German. "Tell them that if I find a single one up there, I'll shoot him on sight. _Move!_ "

The two men took off at a sprint and within minutes SS guards were marching down to the gates, hands held above their heads. Only one was a junior officer and Andy took a careful look at him.

"I remember you. Jodl's nephew didn't die in a duel. I skewered him on his own fuckin' dagger."

"I thought so," the officer said, hands still above his head. "Why have you come back?"

"To take this place away from you," Andy stated and marched through the gates.

Miranda and Emily followed, as did Jack and several of his men, on foot. Miranda caught up with Andy, but fell back again when Andy increased her pace. That said it all: she wanted to be alone with this place. Miranda held Jack and Emily back a little and Andy was eventually fully fifty yards ahead of everyone else.

The only sounds here were the tramp of their boots, the rush of a cold wind, and the harsh cries of crows. Overhead soft clouds scudded across a deep blue sky, and it was strange to be in this awful place on so beautiful a day.

Once they reached the barracks Andy gave quiet orders for every one to be checked. They were all empty but each one reeked of sickness and death. At the edge of something like a parade ground stood a single right-angle gallows.

"They hanged people there every day," Andy said. "Usually just one, like a warning to the rest of us... Funny: I forgot about that till I saw that thing. Maybe it's cos those were simple deaths, rather humane, in the end. I'll never forget anyone I saw kicked or beaten to death, and my God, I dunno how many people died on that fence, there. Dunno why, but it's got a really strong charge, more than the rest of the fences."

"It probably has to do with how they're all connected," one of Jack's men said. "Some will have more resistance of the current; others will amplify it... Do you think the fences are still charged? If so, I must see about turning them off."

"I wouldn't go anywhere near those fences until the generator powering 'em is blown up," Andy stated flatly.

The generator was hunted and found to be switched off, but Jack's man made sure of the fences by disconnecting the generator from everything that even looked like a cable. For good measure, he used bolt-cutters to cut off the links that enabled the cables to be connected to the generator.

By then Rills and Yves had arrived with some of their men. One of the American soldiers was a photographer who asked Andy's help to plan the best way to photograph the whole camp, for an official record of the place. They went back to the gates, to start there, and Miranda and Emily tagged along. Another of Rills' men stuck close to Andy, occasionally asking questions. He wrote both his questions and Andy's answers in a notebook.

"He's collecting evidence for the trial," Emily told Miranda. "For all we know, Andy might be this camp's only survivor. I hope there are more, but by now, God alone knows where they are."

"I have a childish urge to demand of those guards where the people here were taken," Miranda said. "But they probably don't know, and given that we could almost throw a stone into Germany from here... And just think: the prisoners from this place were marched past how many thousands of German citizens—they dare not deny what their country has done."

"They will," Emily almost whispered. "You know they will."

Miranda kicked angrily at a stone and Emily tugged on her sleeve. They caught up with Andy and her note-taking and photographing companions. By Andy's tone Miranda knew that she was struggling now, but her expression was set, the line of her shoulders straight and determined. Those two Americans and Miranda and Emily were taken on a tour narrated by a guide who'd lived through the horror here.

Every minute of that tour was awful, because almost every minute involved Andy saying something like, "And once a man died there, and they left his body lying for three days." The _caw-CAW_ of crows was heard nearly all the time, and some sat on tree branches and along fence-wires, watching the humans.

"Waiting for us to die," Andy said. "They learned to expect free meals, see. That's why the Krauts left dead people lying around, so we'd all see what our future was supposed to be: lunch for the crows."

"But they had to pick up the dead eventually. Where did they bury 'em?" the photographer asked.

"Never buried any that I saw. A lot of dead got carried in there, the crematorium."

Andy pointed to a low building and Miranda found herself staring at the tall chimney stack. When they went inside the big oven was cold and had been swept clean. In a shed next door they found shelves and shelves of the clay pots Andy had mentioned to Barry, Peter, and Capt. MacIlvray.

"My uncle's an undertaker," the photographer said. "Those are urns, all right."

He snapped a picture of his unit-mate handling one of the urns. Miranda blinked after the harsh flash and she found herself standing alone with the two Americans. She looked over her shoulder and saw Emily walking next to Andy.

"I think she's done," the photographer said quietly. "If I was her, I'd never have come back here."

"Me neither," said the other man. "Ma'am, you tell her it's okay. She should get outa here, if she wants to."

Miranda nodded and strode away. The message was unnecessary: Andy was walking downhill, fast. Miranda fell in at her side and took her hand and Andy returned her grip tightly.

"I wanna go home," Andy said.

"I'll go ahead, see if I can find Stepman," Emily said and jogged away.

By the time they reached the gates, the SS guards had been taken away and Miranda shot Yves a look of thanks for that. He gave a slight nod and made a small gesture for Miranda to keep Andy walking down the hill. Stepman and Emily met them just a hundred yards or so from the gates, and Miranda climbed in the back of the Jeep with Andy. They made only one stop at the bottom of the hill, to say goodbye to Jack and Rills, and Rills told Stepman to make that trip at all safe speed.

"You see anything hinky, Private, then make a detour. Otherwise, don't stop. Get your vehicle refueled now, and just in case take another jerry can of fuel."

"Yessir. You got any letters for me to take back to the coast, sir?"

"Say, thanks for the offer, son. I'll be back directly," Rills said and hurried off to fetch or quickly write a letter.

While the Jeep was being refueled, Andy was quiet. Her fingers were laced into Miranda's, but Andy's grip wasn't firm; Miranda's was the anchor-grip, and though Andy was physically taller, to Miranda she seemed somehow small in those moments.

"It's hitting you now, hmm?" Jack said gently to Andy.

Her only answer was a nod, and he whispered something in her ear that Miranda didn't catch, and Andy's expression changed.

"Yeah, I did," she said.

Jack smiled and said goodbye again, and walked away.

"What did he say?" Miranda asked.

"That today I won my personal battle in this war," Andy said.

"Look at it the right way, and Hitler should be rubbing a very sore arse," Emily said. "Because you kicked it but properly. Any camp survivor should see it that way: to live is to win."

"I'm gonna die of old age," Andy said, smiling at Miranda. "All three of us are gonna end up ancient and cantankerous, one day."

"Aren't we supposed to age gracefully?" Miranda said, amused.

"Fuck aging gracefully," Andy said with a laugh. "I vote for aging brazenly."

"Brashly, too," Emily said, grinning.

"All right," Miranda said. "But seeing as I'm twenty years ahead of the both of you, don't complain when you have to deal with my version of brashly and brazenly."

"Oh, I can't wait," Emily said, and to Andy: "Imagine the things she'll say."

"I _know_ ," Andy said and laughed. She smacked a kiss on Miranda's cheek. "Y'know what?"

"Tell me," Miranda said.

"I think we can safely engrave our names on tomorrow," Andy said.

Somewhere far off there was the low thunder of artillery, but Miranda looked around and drew in a deep breath of the clear Alsace air. She nodded and smiled at Andy.

"Yes," Miranda said simply.

~ ~ ~


	7. Chapter 7

**_SEVEN_ **

Germany was defeated and officially surrendered on May eighth, 1945. Andy got the news from a pair of shrieking twins at around ten a.m, and that day marked the first hugs they gave her. Those were to be the first of many, but Andy didn't know that, and at the time she was more pleased about the hugs than she was about the end of the damn war in Europe: the end of the war had been inevitable; hugs from Caroline and Cassidy, not so much.

By the end of that day, the twins were exhausted and went to bed a little before nine. The remnants of Miranda's impromptu party amounted to a lot of cleaning up. There were several die-hard guests to help with that, mostly the usual suspects, but with the addition of two who'd been scarce until today. Tomas and Nate had both been wounded a month or so ago, and had been on their way to visit Miranda and Andy, and happened to arrive in the middle of that impromptu celebration of the end of the war on the Continent.

"Never expected a party," Nate said, and he was a little tipsy.

"I didn't either," Tomas said. "No more wine for you, lightweight."

"I've forgotten how to drink it," Nate said with a grin.

"Well, you can learn the skill again," Miranda said and passed him a dish to dry. "Can you two stay, or do you have to report to barracks, or something?"

"We got our discharge forms; we're out," Nate said.

"That started two months ago already, because of all the German surrenders," Tomas said. "Even men with very small wounds have been discharged."

Andy had gotten into the French habit of being polite on a personal level: she didn't ask about the severity of Nate and Tomas' injuries. Both could walk, though with a limp. She knew that they'd been hit by shrapnel from the same shell, and she knew that another man with them hadn't been as fortunate and had been killed. As far as Tomas and Nate knew, Michel and Pierre were alive and well.

"We had a letter from Michel last week," Tomas told Andy a little later. "Like always, Pierre wrote a little bit, too. You have to start the letter, and then Pierre will write in it. He has a superstition about it. You know how he can be."

"Yeah," Andy said wryly, remembering that Pierre would kiss the crucifix around his neck twice before any action, even though he was an atheist. "So when d'you think they'll be discharged?"

"Soon. That unit is not meant to go anywhere else, and I don't think that either Michel or Pierre will volunteer for duty in the Far East. Every Frenchman going there must volunteer. Many have, though I think they're stupid. France must be rebuilt and cleaned up, and we have so few whole men left for that job... Miranda said you've been blowing things up again."

"Kraut bunkers. The politicians wanna keep the ones along the coast, and I agree: those are historic battle markers. The ones out here, though... I was apparently the first person those politicians thought of for the job."

"I am not surprised," Tomas drawled.

Andy snorted a laugh and took a last drag on her smoke before stubbing it out. She'd gotten used to being ragged for her initially overzealous application of TNT. She'd also been helping to rebuild this and that, including a few of the bridges she'd blown up.

"The new ones are just temporary," she told Tomas. "But the Army Engineers believe that temporary should still last, so I've been learning stuff, useful stuff. Next week me and a bunch of other women will be helping to bolt together all the bits and pieces of another bridge. If more men are discharged, it's likely that we'll be teaching them how to do that."

"I think you'll have many students, soon," Tomas said. "And when that work is done, what do you want to do?"

"Well, I've gotta have my priorities in order," Andy said. "First on the list, even before I help build that bridge, is booking a ticket on a ship to the States: I've gotta go see my parents."

"Aah, _oui_ ," Tomas said. "Will _Renarde_ go with you?"

"She's said that she wants to, and we'll take the girls... I'm hoping that my parents will end up here, one day, but that's up-in-the-air, just a hope. The most important thing is to go see them. We'll take Nate and Lily and Doug along, too. I dunno what Nate wants, but for Doug and Lily that's a round trip; they'll be coming back here. For them, as it is for me, France is home."

"I think Nate will come back," Tomas said. "He fought and bled for this country, and his help was and always will be very much appreciated. He's a man who likes to belong, I think, and there's no-one who will tell him that he doesn't belong here... Oh, did Nate tell you that we saw that tall SAS captain in Paris—the one who came here with the other two Englishmen. Remember him?"

"Yeah. How's MacIlvray doing?" Andy said.

"Maybe you'll see him soon, because he said he was there with Emily. You know how a man can say a woman's name, and you _know_ that he loves her?"

"Ohhh," Andy said. "So that's what she meant about 'news.'"

"I think so, and I think that will work," Tomas said. "Women like Emily and you and Miranda must either love women, or your men must understand you. Men like me and MacIlvray and Henri and Michel, we can understand you. Other men... _mais non_ , they never do."

"True," Andy said. "And the sparks were zipping between Emily and MacIlvray right from the moment they met. When did you see him in Paris?"

"Yesterday."

"Well, given the Kraut surrender maybe Em and MacIlvray went home to celebrate there."

"Maybe, and I understand that. If I was in England, I would've wanted to come home today," Tomas said.

Andy's guess proved out, and Emily and MacIlvray arrived on Friday the eleventh, and they brought James Holt with them.

"Who is _that?_ " Lily demanded of Andy.

"You like _that_ , huh?" Andy giggled. "C'mon. Lemme introduce you to James."

Within fifteen minutes of that introduction, Andy was certain that James would be returning to France for good, just as soon as he'd gotten a discharge from the Army. Sparks had zipped between Emily and MacIlvray, but between Lily and James there were invisible fireworks on the go. There was a brief gap in those fireworks when James mentioned going back to the States soon, but he immediately followed that up with his intention of a quick return to France, and the fireworks between him and Lily promptly resumed.

As for Emily and MacIlvray (Andy would have to work on calling him Alasdair), there was a settling there that spoke of something quiet and happy and certain, not unlike Andy's relationship with Miranda. MacIlvray now had an eye-patch and above it a thick scar ran to his hairline.

"He gets the occasional headache, but other than that, he's fine," Emily said. "But the best is, my parents adore him. They hated my last two boyfriends."

"That couldn't have been fun," Andy said.

"It wasn't– fights almost every bloody day. But none regarding Alasdair... Then again those other lads were _lads_ , y'know, rather boyish chaps. Alasdair's thirty-one and acts like it... What's that you've got?"

"A baby ladder snake," said Cassidy. "Isn't he cute?"

"He's lovely," Emily said and took the little snake carefully and allowed it to weave itself around and between her fingers. "I had a grass snake as a pet once, but he got very unhappy and I let him go."

"Oh," Caroline said. "We were gonna try keep this one. They really don't like it?"

"No, and feeding them isn't pretty. You have to breed mice just so you can feed the babies to your snake."

"Eww!" the twins said.

"Right. So think about that," Emily said lightly.

She gave the snake back to the girls and they walked away with it, much to Andy's relief.

"I owe you one," Andy told Emily sincerely.

"Not at all, goose, only too happy to help," Emily chortled. "But you'd better think of getting those two a pet of some kind."

Andy wordlessly pointed at three of the several cats that called the chateau home.

"Oh, come off it," Emily scoffed. "Those cats are miniature leopards, merely pretending to be tame, and you know it. Those two want something to call their own. Do you and Miranda really want the hassle of tears at mealtimes because the girls have decided to turn a lamb into a pet, and now you're eating its cousins?"

"Ohhh shit," said Andy.

"Wake up, do," Emily chuckled. "Whenever farm kids want a pet, their parents get clever and get them a dog of their own."

"I'll talk to Miranda about that, but not right now, because we've got a trip to the States planned."

"Have you written to your parents lately?"

Andy shook her head. Lily, Doug, and Nate had also chosen not to write. They'd all four changed so much in the last few years and they all felt that it was best to just arrive at their former homes and let their parents experience those changes for themselves.

"During the war I often found it really difficult to write to my parents," Emily said. "And whenever I got to see them, what they said most often had to do with how different I was. They're used to it now, but it took a good few visits before they properly accepted those changes... How long will you and Miranda stay in the States?"

"The plan is to go over on a mail ship, but they're all booked solid already: the earliest berths we could get are mid-September."

"You lot can't leave off writing to your parents until then," Emily said. "You really can't. At least send them a telegram to let them know you're alive, because I promise you this, by now they're wondering; by now they've at least considered the possibility that the four of you are dead."

Andy winced at that and chose not to think about it further than fixing it. She and Lily traveled to Paris on Monday afternoon, and Doug and Nate met them at the newly reinstalled US consulate. It was best to send telegrams via the consulate, whose staff would ensure that the senders would be notified of replies. France's mail and telecommunications system was generally still in disarray because most of its wartime staff had either been German or _Vichyste_ , and the new staff were somewhat inexperienced. At the consulate a clock on the wall showed Andy that it was around nine a.m on the US East Coast.

"I'm gonna hang around here," Nate said. "My aunt or uncle or one of their staff will transcribe my wire. From their offices, it's a ten-minute drive to my parents' front gate."

"You might as well stick around," a Navy yeoman agreed. "What about the rest of you?"

"Same," Andy said. "Any telegram addressed to my dad gets hand-delivered to him, and we addressed Lily's wire care of my dad, so..."

"I'm the odd one out," Doug said. "My folks will probably get their telegram tomorrow."

"Huh," Lily said. "We all said in our wires that we're _all_ well. Our parents will tell yours that you're fine, so they'll be expecting that wire."

"Next time spend a little more on a phone call," the yeoman said. "We've got a trunk line directly to the New York exchange, and from there calls get bounced anywhere in the States, and also into Canada. You each spent around seven dollars on a telegram, but eight bucks would get you a five-minute trunk call. There's a funny delay, when you talk, but once you get used to waiting for words to travel either way, it's like having a regular conversation."

"Y'know, I'd just love to see my dad use the phone," Doug drawled.

"Prof Robertson using modern communication devices?" Lily said and giggled. "I don't think so."

"We've all got at least one relative like that, don't we?" the yeoman said with a laugh. "Stuck in the last century, even though we're nearly halfway through this one... You folks get some coffee and I'll let you know when anything comes through. We don't shut up either the coffee shop or the telegram and teletype office till twenty-one-hundred hours—nine p.m. That's to accommodate the time difference."

"Long day for you, though," Andy said.

"Nope. We all like the late shift– we only start at one p.m. The regular shift starts at six a.m."

" _Right_ ," said Doug and Nate.

"That's not early," Lily said.

"Yeah, we're all up and working on the farm before then," Andy said with a shrug.

The talk over coffee and doughnuts involved Lily's plans for the future. Doug was set and Nate and François had already teamed up and were in the process of turning François' bistro into a new restaurant. Lily's former employer had, even before the war ended, taken her three kids to England and by now they were on their way to Canada.

"She just shut up the gallery, didn't sell it," Lily said. "So now I have to find a new gallery in need of a manager, or do something else. Until then, I'm becoming an expert butter- and cheese-maker."

"And me and Francois aren't complaining," Nate said. "Lily, I think you gotta just cruise for a while, let this city settle down."

"Yeah," Doug said, nodding. "For now, Parisians are thinking more about how to fix stuff and get enough to eat. Contemporary art's not something they're gonna think about much, for a while."

"Miranda said much the same thing," Lily said. She shot a mild glare at Andy, and said, "Of course, Andy agreed rather enthusiastically."

"I love ya. This is a bad thing?" Andy giggled. "But seriously, I think these two fellas and Miranda have it right: give it a while. I'm pretty sure that by this time next year you'll have been a Paris resident again for at least a couple months... Paris is stubborn. This is the place where France is gonna start putting the war behind them, and all the other cities and towns will follow."

"Except Caen," Nate said. "It got pretty much flattened—and I mean _flat_. The only things taller than a man are piles of rubble and the rare and really lucky tree."

"They'll rebuild," Andy said. "I know the French: they'll rebuild just to say ' _La!_ ' to the war and every bomb that fell on them."

"Like the Brits are rebuilding London," Doug said, nodding. "Y'know, I think that's one of the stupidest things Hitler ever did. If he hadn't wasted all that time and materiel bombing London, he coulda focused on smashing Britain's war-materiel factories. Instead, for every bomb Hitler dropped, Britain manufactured twenty or thirty."

"And for every Luftwaffe plane that got shot down, the Limeys built three or four," Andy said in agreement. "There's lotsa battles we can look at now and say, 'Oh yeah, _der Führer_ fucked up.' I mean, Kursk? Why the hell did Hitler commit that much armor and manpower to a battle that he could no-way, no-how win?"

"Arrogance," Lily muttered. "Like Emily and Miranda keep saying, Hitler's arrogance cost Germany the war."

"If not for his arrogance, there wouldn't have been a fuckin' war," Nate said, his tone both angry and peeved. "I think I'll always be a little mad at the Germans for that. They let him push them into... everything. They just went along with it. Reckless and stupid and crazy."

"Important distinction: Hitler didn't do it all by himself," Doug said and lit a cigarette. "I think it's a mistake for us or anyone to sit and bitch about Hitler, and forget that until most of the way through Forty-three, the majority of German soldiers were volunteers, not draftees or conscripts. Hitler woulda been nothing without the backing of the German people. We need to remember that. The trick is to remember without holding the Germans accountable in perpetuity. That would be wrong. Can't do that. But, we mustn't ever allow large numbers of Germans to say, 'Hitler made us do it!' Nope. They chose, and they've gotta remember that."

"Big difference between taking responsibility and just feeling guilty," Andy said.

"Yeah," Nate said. "People who feel responsible try to fix things. People who just feel guilty think that saying 'Sorry' is all they have to do."

"'Sorry' is nowhere near enough," Lily said.

The conversation continued for another half-hour, until the yeoman arrived with two reply telegrams, one from Nate's parents and one from Lily's.

"Mine says: ' _Wonderful news_ ' and my folks even paid for an exclamation mark," Lily said.

"Same," Nate chuckled. "Hearing from us is worth extra for punctuation, I guess... Doug, mine says here: ' _Will convey news to Robertsons today_.'"

"Mine mentions that your parents have taken their vacation, Andy," Lily added and handed over the telegram.

"And they say ' _have care of Sachs mail_ ,' so it's the usual deal," Andy said. "Y'know, I'm glad that things like that traditional vacation haven't changed."

"Know what you mean," Nate said. "Somewhere something's still ticking over the way it should... I'm gonna love and leave ya. François said I should take this evening off, but I'd rather go do some work."

Doug went along with Nate, and Lily and Andy took the road home. Lily ended up dozing during the trip and Andy sat behind the wheel, mostly alone with her thoughts.

As she'd said earlier, she was pleased that her parents still vacationed every year. It meant that they were either not constantly worried about their daughter, or they'd arrived in a place where they could live and enjoy life despite that worry. Either was a good thing, in Andy's book.

But little did Andy know _where_ her parents had decided to 'vacation' this year. She found out a few days later when, curious about the arrival of a vehicle, she quit some tidying and left the dairy office. She nearly walked right into a hurrying Henri.

"There you are," he rumbled. "Wait here and listen: your parents, they are here."

" _What?_ " Andy squawked.

" _Oui_. The Paris Police telephoned me early and said that I must go there with a car. So I arrive, and the _Préfet de Police_ comes rushing and asks me, 'Has _la Rabouilleuse_ sailed to America yet?' And me, I say No, and the _Préfet_ breathed out a big relieved sigh. Very dramatic... You look just like your mother. I knew who those two were even before the _Préfet_ told me."

"Uhh..." said Andy and ran her fingers through her hair. And the only other thing she could say was, "Wow..."

"I thought maybe it takes you like this," Henri rumbled. "It's everything you could want, but you don't know what to do with it, no?"

"Yeah," Andy said, nodding. "So how much did you tell 'em on the way here?"

"Much, but I only answered their questions, _chérie_ ," Henri said. "Of course, for every answer I gave, they found new questions to ask."

"Goes that way, yeah," Andy said with a wry laugh. Then: "And you left Miranda alone with them?"

"So? _Renarde_ has faced a tank, in her pajamas," Henri said with a shrug.

"I'm sure she'd rate the tank less perilous," Andy drawled.

"Maybe... You should wash your face," Henri said.

"Grubby?"

" _Oui_."

There was a hand-basin in the office and Andy ran a little water into it and washed her face quickly. After drying it she looked into the mirror: that face was so much older than the one belonging to the girl who'd left Cincinnati in 1938. There were several grey hairs at Andy's temples, the silver strands starkly bright against dark brown, and the first of them had arrived there sometime between the night she'd been kidnapped by the Gestapo, and the day she'd arrived at Miranda's home. Like the rest of her hair the greys had been very short and therefore hard to see, at first, but as her hair had grown so they'd become noticeable. Andy had taken that for granted: after what she'd been through, a lack of greys would've been more surprising.

She turned her head a little and ran her fingers over the still-cockled, still-pink bullet-burn scar on her neck, and she considered asking Henri to sneak inside and get her a neckerchief. Andy shook her head at herself: no, that wouldn't do. To date, since the wound had healed, she'd not hidden that scar. Like other people in this country, she'd taken that wound honestly and honorably, and the mark it had left was a visual reminder, to others, that Andy had helped to kick the Germans out of France.

Andy hung up the towel and left the office, and outside, Henri nodded towards the house. Andy tagged along, wondering what she'd say, besides Hello. The last thing she'd expected on arrival in the kitchen was to be pounced at by a Scotty dog.

"Who are you?" Andy said, petting him.

"That's Winston. I thought he'd like you."

Andy straightened up and smiled at her father. Richard, too, looked much older, and his crew-cut hair had gone pepper-and-salt. Andy stepped into a tight hug and for a while Andy almost forgot the last few years. Her father looked older but that hug felt as firm and strong as it always had.

"We arrive in France and find that most everyone knows who you are," Richard said. "They say, 'Oh, you mean Miz Trouble-causer.'"

"I'm stuck with that nickname," Andy said, laughing.

"Funny thing? We read about what you got up to, and didn't even know it was you," Richard said.

"They actually reported that in American papers?"

"Somewhat... sanitized, is the military term, I believe," Richard said, his expression wry. "The American writers made it sound like you were just organizing things, not actually doing them yourself."

"Hmph. Annoying but not surprising," Andy said. "American men are most of 'em still pissed off about the fact that women can vote."

"Women can't vote here," Richard pointed out.

"Oh yes we can," Andy said with a grin. "Last week the entire interim government decided unanimously to give us the vote."

"They are wise men," Henri rumbled. "If they hadn't been wise... Well, many women in this country are, uhh, fed up with any man trying to control them. And these are _armed_ women, you see?"

"Yes," Richard chuckled. And to Andy: "Your mother's in the living room."

"Giving Miranda the third degree?" Andy said.

"I doubt it," Richard said, amused. "Lady's got a lot of command presence."

"First thing I thought when I met her," Andy said with a nod. "I remembered you describing what that was, what it looked like and felt like, and yeah, Miranda has it by the boatload."

"You, too," Henri said around a cigarette. "But with you it's... more quiet, almost hidden away until you need it. Then you speak and people hurry to obey."

"When things had to be done fast, I made sure they were done fast," Andy said with a shrug. "But now it's peacetime, and thankfully the only orders I give are to cows and sheep and the occasional cheeky chicken that comes inside... And where are Jeannette and Lily?"

"Delivering eggs. Miranda said Tomas has a bad cold," Henri said.

"He should've stayed in bed yesterday," Andy said. "You coming along now, or do you have to go?"

"I should go and do my job," Henri rumbled. "Someone's new bull broke the fence of someone else, so I must tell the owner of the bull to pay for repairs."

"Good luck," Andy said.

Henri grunted a response, shook Richard's hand, and left. Richard looked at the empty doorway for a while.

"I'd call anyone who argued with _him_ a fool."

"Huh," Andy said with a laugh. "This is France, and although most people trust Henri in this area, they're still French and when they feel they're right, they'll argue with God Himself."

"They sound almost Jewish," Richard said lightly.

"You noticed, too," Andy giggled.

She led the way to the living room, and little Winston trotted along next to Andy. Arthur's Juno would often choose to stick close to Andy, too, and she wondered if Juno would like Winston. Andy also wryly thought that a lot of puppies were being named Winston these days.

"How old is he?"

"Winston? Just turned a year old," Richard said. "The captain of our mail ship announced his birthday over the Tannoy, and the crew told the cook to mix Winston up a hash of raw ground beef and egg."

"Bet he liked that," Andy said.

"Sure did... That sounds good," Richard said, nodding his head toward laughter, Miranda's.

"Mom's probably told Miranda some weird when-Andy-was-little story," Andy drawled. "Guess I gotta put up with that now."

"As long as we're alive," Richard said with a grin.

Andy rolled her eyes and walked into the living room. Miranda was in the giggle-sigh stage after hard laughter, and Andy's mom Rachel was smiling. She caught sight of Andy and just about flew off the couch. Andy was practically body-slammed, and she laughed, hugging her mother's waist tightly. Rachel didn't look any different, but somehow she felt small, and Andy realized that somewhere along the way she'd grown a little.

"You're taller," Rachel said in confirmation.

"I thought the same thing," Richard said. "About an inch taller, maybe a little more than that."

"Must've happened in the first few months here, but I didn't notice and no-one else did either," Andy said. "We had tickets booked for mid-September, but I guess we won't be using 'em now."

"So you're not coming back to the States," Rachel said.

"Visits only," Andy said, nodding. "This is where I belong. Lily, Nate, and Doug feel the same way. More importantly, the people here feel the same way, feel that we belong to them, and that we belong here. Nate trained as a scout with the _Résistance_ and then served with the Free French on the frontlines; he's stopped regarding himself as a foreigner. Doug and Lily spent the invasion months here, stealing Kraut phone lines and helping to manage the logistics of getting airdropped supplies out to people and fighters who needed them. And me... Well, like Nate I was in it all, neck-deep, but for a lot longer, and along the way I put down roots."

Andy took a seat next to Miranda and stole the cigarette that she'd just lit.

"Brat," Rachel chuckled.

"I learned it from her," Andy said. "And last time Emily was here she confessed to trying to break herself of the same habit. All Miranda's fault."

"I'm a terrible influence," Miranda said, smirking.

"Who takes great pleasure in being a terrible influence," Andy tacked on.

"I noticed," Rachel chortled.

"Me, too," Richard said.

He was eyeing Miranda's comfortable lean into Andy's side, and Andy shook her head.

"Henri said that he answered your questions. Of course you didn't ask about _that_ ," Andy said wryly.

"I didn't have to ask about _that_ ," Rachel said. "It was pretty obvious, with the way Henri was talking."

"Not to me," Richard muttered. "How does that work?"

"You'll get embarrassed if I tell you now," Rachel said, laughing. "I'll tell you later."

"And he really did mean the mechanics of _how_ ," Andy said to Miranda.

"You're one of those very literal men, are you?" Miranda asked.

"Somewhat," Richard said, his face a little red. To Rachel, "How do you know?"

"I'm a nurse, honey. Career nurses know all," Rachel said. To Andy: "If you don't mind me asking, what happened with Nate?"

"I grew up before he did," Andy said and tapped an ash. "But you won't know him now, and sometimes you'll find it hard to believe that he ever was that other boyish Nate. Still, even now, we're not right for each other. I've allowed my tomboyish streak to run rampant and Nate's really not attracted to tomboy-girls."

"But Miranda is," Rachel said.

"Indeed," said Miranda.

"I suppose I am, too," Richard mused. "And now that bit of 'How' makes simple sense. But I've never thought about this, about women loving women: not something I've ever come across before. Is it common here in France?"

"No more common than anywhere else, I should think," Miranda said. "But it is common here for people to be open and honest about their preferences, and even since the Nazis' influence has resulted in more people being open in their dislike of homosexuals, we're not likely to back down. It's been that way since the Revolution, during which time a law was passed decriminalizing homosexual activity. That was all the way back in Seventeen-ninety-one: very progressive, the French. Currently much of that progressive thinking has to do with _laïcité_ , a rigorous separation of law and state from any religiously-based tenets. _Laïcité_ was formalized in law in Nineteen-oh-five, and though the Vichy government sought to abolish that law, they failed, because even their most ardent supporters insisted that church and state shouldn't mix."

"In the States that separation is just words," Andy said. "There's no real separation when any politician can stand up in Congress or the Senate and quote the Bible as basis for the bill or law he proposes. This country's been bombed to hell and in lotsa places, there's still no electricity, but in America, even though the lights are all on, even though people are watching television, and despite the fact that there's a refrigerator in most every kitchen, the majority of Americans are legally, socially, and mentally still back in the Dark Ages. Go back to live there? _Me?_ Not a chance."

"Ya put it that way..." Richard said and rubbed the side of his neck.

"And it's gonna get worse," Andy said, certain. "Way, way worse. We know people on the inside who are talking about the FBI getting into everyone's business, just in case they _might_ be a communist. They're going after anyone who engages in so-called un-American activity, and that includes going to the library and taking out a book by any Russian author. The FBI requires all libraries to submit that information to them immediately."

"You can't be serious," Rachel mumbled.

"Unfortunately, we are," Miranda said, nodding. "One of the men we know is already back here, with his last name changed, and that fact's been kindly covered up by certain French officials. The other fellow recently wrote us from Canada to say that he much prefers it there, thanks-very-much."

"And even Major Ravitz has bailed, applied for citizenship in England," Andy said.

"I really can't imagine Irving Ravitz as a French citizen," Miranda drawled. "But yes, he bailed, too, as Andrea said. When told the news, I was rendered speechless for a moment."

"You weren't the only one," Andy giggled. She cleared her throat, and said, "I originally hoped maybe you two would decide off your own bat to come live here, but seriously, think about it, okay?"

"I'm thinking already," Rachel said.

"That makes two of us," Richard said. "I mean, besides good friends and distant cousins, there's nothing tying us there."

"So neither of your parents are still with us?" Miranda asked.

"No," Richard said. "Both of my parents died before Andy was born, and Rachel's parents were both gone before Andy turned ten."

"And we were both only children," Rachel said.

"I got a strong feeling that I was adopted," Richard said. "If I do the math, then my mother had me at age forty-four."

"The likelihood of her surviving pregnancy and childbirth at that age, in Eighteen-ninety-three, is next to nil," Rachel said.

"I concur," Miranda said. "I needed the best doctors to help me through the ordeal of a late-age pregnancy just twelve years ago."

"Wait-wait," Rachel said. "You have a twelve-year-old?"

"No, my dear. I have _two_ ," Miranda chuckled.

"Twins, two girls," Andy said. "Adorable little hellions. You'll love 'em... and probably spoil 'em rotten."

"Quite possible," Rachel admitted.

"Maybe," Richard said and he was already grinning at just the idea.

"Darling, I think Lily was bang on the money," Miranda said wryly.

"Yeah. Those two instant grandkids got instant grandparents," Andy said, laughing.

"We came to France expecting to find a grave," Rachel said. "I think this is a much better ending to the story."

"An ending?" Miranda said. "No-no. This is only the beginning."

____________________

Epilogue: Rosh Hashanah, September 1946

While kneading dough for challah bread, Miranda found herself contemplating the existence of God again, something of a habit on every major Jewish holiday. She still wasn't certain, and she quite firmly thought that anyone who was certain of the existence of God was also in need of a shrink. Faith, after all, wasn't about certainty; it was about believing despite uncertainty, believing despite a lack of evidence. Miranda wasn't quite in that place yet, and she wasn't sure that she'd ever get there. Ultimately, though, what she believed or didn't believe really didn't matter.

"I wonder how many practicing Jewish atheists there are..." she mused.

"Probably a lot," Rachel said. She tasted something in a pot, and added, "Most of 'em are those people whose parents told them that they were too smart for their own good."

"That sounds awfully familiar," Miranda drawled.

Nearby Jeannette snorted a laugh and completely ignored the glare Miranda gave her. Miranda also glared at the clock on the wall. Andy had driven off in the Renault to fetch several people, and Miranda had wanted them all to be here even before Andy had left. Miranda tended to get even more impatient than usual whenever the gang was meant to assemble here, for whatever reason, and Andy and Miranda between them had managed to think of any number of excuses to invite everyone, often. Mostly they all pitched up, even Emily and MacIlvray who both insisted that the journey from England wasn't a bother in the least.

"Are they here yet?" Henri rumbled and dropped a newspaper on the kitchen table.

"No," Miranda grumbled. "Well, Nigel's here. He and Richard are hunting something in a barn."

"Thierry said he put some hardwood off-cuts in there ages back," Rachel said.

"Oh, but I know where those are..." Henri said and promptly exited the kitchen.

He'd no sooner left than Tomas and Michel walked in, and they also asked if the others had arrived yet.

"Does it sound like it?" Miranda groused.

"Ohhh, she's like _that_ again," Tomas said with a laugh.

Michel's wife Louisa swatted Tomas' arm and kissed both of Miranda's cheeks. She also gave Miranda a squirming baby, who made a grab for her reading glasses.

"Mine, leave them," Miranda chuckled. "You're getting so big, and I really can't believe your parents named you for that big brat of a man, Tomas."

"Like his namesake, he's gorgeous," Rachel said.

" _La!_ " Tomas said to Miranda.

She had to laugh and she did, and she felt her irritable impatience begin to ease into a quiet happiness. It was always this way, when her adopted family began to gather, when the kitchen began to be crowded, when that crowd was eventually chased out by Jeannette. Today, Nate arrived in time to help Jeannette chase nearly everyone, except Rachel and Louisa. Only Andy and Miranda were allowed back in here, Nate said, and in a tone that told everyone that he meant that anyone else would get snapped at. When the whole gang was here, being firm about who was allowed in the kitchen was the only way for anyone cooking to get anything done.

"Perfect," Miranda said after a sip of wine.

"The wine or everything else?" Emily asked.

"Both," Miranda said smugly.

"Me, I agree," Henri rumbled. He lit a cigarette and rolled his eyes when Miranda stole it. He lit another and said, "Why do I put up with you?"

"Same reason the rest of us do," Andy said. "We're stuck with her cos we love her."

"True, true," Nigel chuckled.

Miranda changed her smirk for a smile and looked around at little groups of chatting people, but her eyes settled eventually on her two daughters. They were playing checkers on an old stone table, and sitting nearby was a dog called Juno, one named Winston, and another dog much larger and still not fully grown, called (of all things) Patricia.

"I'd still love to know how the hell they came up with that name..." Miranda drawled.

"They're _your_ daughters," Emily said.

"Which should explain everything," Henri rumbled.

"And it does," Nigel chuckled.

"Yup," Andy said, nodding. She kissed away Miranda's frown, and said, "Look on the bright side: like you, they'll never be boring."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Miranda said, amused. She looked around again, and said, "Have you all noticed how often this tends to happen? I mean, the gang's all gathered, but the five of us often draw a little apart."

"Whenever we do, I think of that morning when I arrived in the kitchen here," Andy said.

"Me, I think the same," Henri said.

Emily and Nigel made similar noises of agreement, and Miranda's comment was a nod. The conversation moved on to other things, but Miranda fell into silence, listening with only half an ear.

Her mind went back in time, just a few years, to that morning, and she let her mind travel on the stream of memory to the present, one that she once had had no hope of owning.

She looked around at beloved people, in the favorite setting of her front garden, blessed with shade thrown by stately old oaks, whose leaves were beginning to turn gold and red. Just over there were the vineyards, still green, and in the distance, on a hillside, were new rows of grafted olive trees. Further still, on the hilltop was a thick stand of oaks, a place Miranda chose these days to visit seldom, because it was almost sacred to her. Andy felt the same way: they'd walk there together, alone, and let the memory of dark nights in those dark war days rush in on them.

Miranda drew a breath and exhaled it slowly and calmly. She tightened her arm slightly around Andy's waist and let her eyes rest again on Cassidy and Caroline.

This was a glorious present, one that had been well-worth fighting for.

__________Ω__________

**AFTERWORD**

Writing this story was a helluva balancing act. I was wading through all this horrible research, and yet I wanted the overall takeaway to be a feel-good story. I wanted this story to speak to awful truths but I couldn't allow those truths to overwhelm that feel-good takeaway. I wanted to dispel myths without resorting to lectures. I wanted it to be historically accurate, but I couldn't allow too many facts to crowd out the story. I wanted the characters to fit, but I could never allow any of them to get comfortable—only writers will know what I mean by that. I think I managed all of that. Somehow.

For those expecting a notes post, there likely won't be one, not in my usual vein. The only proper way to handle a notes post for EONoT is to write yet another book, and I really don't have the energy for that.

As already mentioned, the sort of research that went into this story was often soul-sapping, soul-crushing, just plain depressing. To paraphrase what I said not so long ago to law_nerd, not even Elie Wiesel ~~knows~~ knew (ETA: RIP, Elie) all there is to know about the Holocaust. Whenever you do any research into the Holocaust, you have to prepare for this reality: the atrocities seem never to end; there's always something worse just waiting for you to read it, or see it in those stark black-and-white images showing the results of evil.

Research into the German Occupation of France was just as saddening, depressing, often sickening. The Internet eagerly provided me with all the stuff (TONS of it) left out of the ink-on-paper books I've read on the subject of the Occupation and German retaliatory actions following the Allied Invasion of Normandy. Few books are as honest as they should be, when it comes to the level of treachery involved in the _Vichyste_ collaboration. Some of the things that upset me deeply surround the trouble France seems to have with owning those bits of its history that are less-than-shiny– the truth is buried under far too many myths and outright lies. There are those in France today who'll say that we should let the past rest. I agree, but I must also counter that statement with this one: the past cannot rest if it's forever denied.

Likewise, America's so-called Greatest Generation really wasn't great at all, and I had the displeasure of a refresher course in exactly how it was the very antithesis of 'great'. My dear American readers, please don't let anyone try to brow-beat you with that Greatest Generation myth. Look in the mirror if you want to see America's greatest generation thus far: you are that generation.

As I write this, we're 72 years on from D-Day, June 6th 1944, and most of the people reading this probably don't know any WWII veterans at all, let alone those who faced hell on the beaches of Normandy. I count it a privilege to be the granddaughter and grandniece and second cousin (twice removed) of six men who were there that day, three of whom were killed on those beaches. The three survivors are all gone now, as well.

To those six men, for what they all gave, and to the French men and women of the FFI who welcomed those soldiers and helped them, in France, I offer my deepest thanks.

And my thanks to you, for reading.

–N

*********


End file.
